As a child, Henry Moore knew he would be a sculptor

Press, 2 September 1986, Page 10

As a child, Henry Moore knew he would be a sculptor

NZPA-Reuter London Henry Moore, one of the greatest sculptors of the twentieth century, died yesterday at his home north of London. He was -88. Moore, the son of a Yorkshire miner, initially misunderstood and later revered around the world, was also one of the most controversial of modern sculptors.

His desire to become a sculptor developed from his childhood when he was fascinated by carved figures on a church tower near his home. Moore was born in 1898 at Castleford, a small town in Yorkshire.

He battled against incomprehension and ridicule to win recognition as one of the greatest sculptors of the century. Reviled in his eprly career by an unprepared public, his style has never gained easy acceptance but his works have with the years imposed themselves as part of the com-

mon experience of the Western world.

His output over 60 years ranged broadly from tiny, polished stones through sinuous wood and plaster carvings to massive roughcast bronzes, typically of reclining figures with tiny heads and pierced with gaping holes. Nearly all are marked by the same powerful, individual vision of a master.

Among his works were a marble reclining figure for the headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation in Paris in 1956 and a large twopiece figure for New York’s Lincoln Centre, unveiled in 1965.

Moore liked outdoor settings for his larger works, which often look cramped in a museum or gallery. Probably the most dramatic siting of all was found for his strange, surreal bronze King and Queen, who sit facing

across a lake on a bare hilltop on a Scottish moor.

The seventh son of a self-educated coalminer, Moore knew he would be a sculptor from the age of 10, when he heard his art teacher speak of Michelangelo.

Yet it was a remarkable series of wartime draw-

ings that changed him, in the words of the influential critic, John Russell, from “the respected friend of a diminutive avant-garde” to “the keeper of the national conscience: one of England’s big men, firmly consecrated.”

Moore was 1.63 metres tall, with a solid, wise face, silver hair, a stocky body and blunt hands made powerful by years of working materials.

He won a scholarship to the local State grammar school and to please his father agreed to learn a profession before trying to live as a sculptor.

He became a student teacher but six months later he was in France as ,a rifleman in World War I. After two years at the front he was gassed at Cambrai. In 1919 he got a grant to study at the school of art in Leeds, the nearest big town to his • home. From there he won

a scholarship to the Royal College Of Art in London and in 1925 a travelling award gave him a chance to study classical Italian art at first hand.

His first one-man show came three years later while he was teaching at the Royal College, where he also met a Russianborn painting student, Irina Radetzky, whom he married in 1929.

In appreciation of his early training, Moore gave works valued at $8.24 million to a specially-designed gallery in the city of Leeds, near his hometown of Castleford.

As a permanent legacy of his life and work, he arranged that after his death his home and studio in Hertfordshire would become a charitable trust for the benefit of the arts, especially sculpture. The buildings and grounds, scattered with Moore’s favourite works, are likely to become a national monument.