Literary Views And Reviews A BIOGRAPHY OF HENRY MOORE

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31304, 25 February 1967, Page 4

Literary Views And Reviews A BIOGRAPHY OF HENRY MOORE

Henry Moore. By Donald Hall. Gollancz. 173 pp. Illustrated. Index.

Henry Moore is the one Important figure in contemporary English sculpture. He has integrity to the central idea of sculpture and, bound by the severest aesthetic considerations, his work is filled with the spirit of research and experiment. It contains the austere logic of ancient sculpture. Thus Jacob Epstein summed up Moore's achievement many years before he received international recognition—and, in spite of the formidable amount of work he had completed, before his pre-eminence was recognised in Britain.

More than 30 years later eomes this first detailed biography of Moore, written by an American poet, critic and professor of English. He

echoes Epstein’s appraisal and presents a picture of an artist who has the courage, the craftsmanship and the talent to match his personal sympathy, humility and integrity —a man who has grown in stature with every completed major work and continues to grow at the age of 69. Professor Hall lived for a year near Moore’s fifteentheentury cottage in Hertfordshire to gather material for his book. He saw a lot of Moore and of his Russian emigre wife Irina, who by

her shyness has helped to protect her husband from the results of gregariousness compounded with fame. He saw, too, the methodical way of life of this now very rich man, his dedication to his craft and his pereerverance. This latter trait no doubt stems as much from the discipline necessary in his many years of struggle to earn even a meagre living and achieve his ambition to “become a sculptor like Michelangelo” as to his innate Yorkshire determination.

The author's portrait of Moore is intimate and his research has been earned out with the utmost thoroughness. His account of the genesis of the major works is enlightening and the emphasis on Moore’s maxim of “truth to, material” brings out clearly the intensity of the artist’s integrity as a sculptor. All the same the reader is left with the impression that this book, excellent in so many ways, is too subjective. Moore loved his mother’s female presence. “I suppose I’ve got a mother complex,” he said once, without letting it worry him. He has repeated over the years the same basic concepts of womanhood —the reclining female figure and the mother and child. The classic relationship of mother and child has within it, however, elements of cruelty and separation, of psychic warfare and irreparable loss. This relationship is more evident in Moore’s later works, and perhaps he is not all the amiable fatheri figure—a mixture of Elgar and Jung—that some would have one believe. The author does not mention this possibility; he was, perhaps, too close to Moore for too long to be entirely objective. Professor Hall allows one suggestion of a criticism. Writing of Moore’s wealth, he remarks that "opinion has it” that his assistants are not overpaid. His approach does not lessen the value of the book, however, although his style is a little tedious. It .becomes “flat” at times, giv- : ing the impression that every detail connected with a par-

ticular sculpture is deemed necessary for the reader—rather in the way of a catalogue for an exhibition. Professor Hall’s task was no easy one, for he is dealing with a man of stature—a man who, by winning the international sculpture prize at the 1948 Venice Biennale, led Britain into the field of international sculpture. He is dealing, too, with the life of a man born the son of a coalminer and who, like other members of his family, might now be a retired schoolmaster in a small country town but for his tenacity in his ambition to be a sculptor. The author has detailed Moore’s techniques in various media and the way he has of constantly “toying” with his vast collection of pebbles and bones and letting his fingers do his thinking for him and suggest new forms for his sculptures. He tell* of the influence African, Mexican and Polynesian sculpture—particularly their threedimensional qualities—had on Moore. These sculptures certainly lacked representational accuracy—but they had complete freedom of expression. For Moore, the realistic ideal of physical beauty in art that sprang from fifth-century Greece was only a digression from the main world tradition of sculpture. Even so, after a visit to Italy, his work showed, for a time, the Influence of the Renaissance. With his versatility he was able, when required, to produce sculpture in the traditional manner.

From the mass of material Professor Hall has gathered,

there emerge, to interest both student and connoisseur, many amusing anecdotes on Moore’s ingenuity in overcoming the difficulties of handling his larger pieces. The largest, the Reclining Figure in the Lincoln Centre, New York, is 28ft long and 17ft high and was taken to Berlin to be cast. The whole project took nearly four years and the plaster original had to be cut into 11 pieces for transport to Germany and then into 65 pieces for casting. This took almost a year and, when complete, the hollowed bronze weighed six tons. Such detail and Moore’s attitude to the Establishment, to his detractors, and to the bestowal on him of the Order of Merit, make absorbing reading. The illustrations, of which there are more than 100, are well chosen and are of excellent quality. They are, of course, indispensable to the text and enable the reader to appreciate Moore’s development over the years. This is a book that one will want to reread often—not only to appreciate more fully the fascinating monumentality of disproportion in Moore’s sculpture and the inspired use of space, or holes, in his work, but to wonder at his struggles and his ultimate remarkable achievements. Not for Henry Moore was the publicity machine which now surrounds a young artist who show* an exceptional gift—or who may hit upon some novel idea to express himself. Moore’* was a hard road to success—but his mark on English and international sculpture will be firmer as a result.