Henry Moore

"Universally recognized as one of the supreme sculptors of the twentieth century, Henry Moore's position as the greatest living British artist was unchallenged from the late 1940s until his death in 1986. Son of a Yorkshire miner, Moore trained at Leeds School of Art and won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art, where he rejected the academic tradition of modelling in favour of direct carving; his early style was characterized by monumentality and formal vigour. In the 1930s he became more closely aligned with the mainstream of European avant-garde art, but even his most abstract work was almost always based on natural forms. It was at this time that Moore developed some of his most characteristic stylistic traits, including his use of hollowed-out rounded forms, his interest in the relationship of the human form to the landscape, and such perennial themes as the reclining female figure and mother and child. Wider international fame came with Moore's sensitive and poignant Shelter drawings, made in his role of Official War artist during World War II. In 1948 he won the International Sculpture Prize at the Venice Biennale, which led to many public commissions. In his later work he preferred bronze to stone as his chosen medium and began work on an extremely large scale. This lavishly illustrated volume provided a fascinating introduction to a twentieth-century genius. An authoritative text highlights the complexity and variety of Moore's themes and discusses his life and working methods, while a host of full-colour plates provides a glorious record of the full range of Moore's work."--Publisher's description