Henry Moore with Reclining Figure, 1929, and Mask, 1930, in the background. From the very beginning the reclining figure has been my main theme. … The vital thing for an artist is to have a subject that allows [him] to try out all kinds of formal ideas—things that he doesn’t yet know about for certain but wants to experiment with, as Cézanne did in his ‘Bathers’ series. In my case the reclining figure provides chances of that sort. —Henry Moore

Henry Moore with Reclining Figure, 1929, and Mask, 1930, in the background.

From the very beginning the reclining figure has been my main theme.

…

The vital thing for an artist is to have a subject that allows [him] to try out all kinds of formal ideas—things that he doesn’t yet know about for certain but wants to experiment with, as Cézanne did in his ‘Bathers’ series. In my case the reclining figure provides chances of that sort.

—Henry Moore

#Henry Moore      #Sculpture      

2 days ago
Henry Moore, study for a wall light, c. 1930. Terracotta.

Henry Moore, study for a wall light, c. 1930. Terracotta.

#Henry Moore      #Sculpture      

2 days ago
Henry Moore, The West Wind, 1928–9, 55 Broadway, Westminster, London. Portland stone relief eighty feet above ground on the seventh storey. I completed the carving on a scaffolding platform where there was only about three feet to stand on, and at first I was alarmed. It was so high up. But when I got down and looked at it from the ground, I realised that the figure’s navel couldn’t be seen properly. This was terrible, because the umbilical area is absolutely central to me—the cord attaches you to your mother, after all. By this time the scaffolding had been dismantled, so I went up again in a cradle, winching it up myself from side to side until I reached the carving. But once there, I found I couldn’t carve properly. Every time I struck a blow, the cradle shot back from the figure. So in the end I got out some charcoal and shaded the navel in … the cradle zigzagged all over the place on the return journey as well. [Jacob] Epstein watched me. After I’d come down he said: ‘I wouldn’t have done that for all the money in the world.’ —Henry Moore

Henry Moore, The West Wind, 1928–9, 55 Broadway, Westminster, London. Portland stone relief eighty feet above ground on the seventh storey.

I completed the carving on a scaffolding platform where there was only about three feet to stand on, and at first I was alarmed. It was so high up. But when I got down and looked at it from the ground, I realised that the figure’s navel couldn’t be seen properly. This was terrible, because the umbilical area is absolutely central to me—the cord attaches you to your mother, after all. By this time the scaffolding had been dismantled, so I went up again in a cradle, winching it up myself from side to side until I reached the carving. But once there, I found I couldn’t carve properly. Every time I struck a blow, the cradle shot back from the figure. So in the end I got out some charcoal and shaded the navel in … the cradle zigzagged all over the place on the return journey as well. [Jacob] Epstein watched me. After I’d come down he said: ‘I wouldn’t have done that for all the money in the world.’

—Henry Moore

#Henry Moore      #55 Broadway      #Frank Pick      #Charles Holden      #Sculpture      

2 days ago
Henry Moore, Seated Figure, 1924. Hopton Wood stone.

Henry Moore, Seated Figure, 1924. Hopton Wood stone.

#Henry Moore      #Sculpture      

3 days ago
Henry Moore while a student at the Royal College of Art, c. 1923–4.

Henry Moore while a student at the Royal College of Art, c. 1923–4.

#Henry Moore      

3 days ago
Henry Moore, Head of the Virgin, 1922, after Domenico Rosselli, Virgin and Child, c. 1439–98. Marble relief.

Henry Moore, Head of the Virgin, 1922, after Domenico Rosselli, Virgin and Child, c. 1439–98. Marble relief.

#Henry Moore      #Domenico Rosselli      #Sculpture      

3 days ago
Henry Moore, Dog, 1922. Marble.

Henry Moore, Dog, 1922. Marble.

#Henry Moore      #Sculpture      

3 days ago
Henry Moore with Barry Hart, his stone-carving instructor at the Royal College of Art, outside Hart Bros stone-carving works, 1922.

Henry Moore with Barry Hart, his stone-carving instructor at the Royal College of Art, outside Hart Bros stone-carving works, 1922.

#Henry Moore      

3 days ago
Eric Gill with The Creation of Adam, 1937. Photo by Howard Coster.

Eric Gill with The Creation of Adam, 1937.

Photo by Howard Coster.

#Eric Gill      #Howard Coster      #Sculpture      

3 days ago
Edward Maufe, St Thomas the Apostle, 1933–4, with Eric Gill, Calvary Group, 1933, Hanwell, London. By the 1930s ambitious modernism in church architecture tended to exclude individual artist-craftswomen and men. Francis X. Velarde and Nugent Cachemaille-Day designed every aspect of a church’s interior decoration themselves. But Edward Maufe, influenced by Swedish architecture and by his wife Prudence who from 1915 was an interior decoration consultant at Heals and organised art and craft shows in the firm’s Mansard Gallery, tried both to be modern and to work collaboratively with artists and makers. The results were curious. His church of St Thomas the Apostle at Hanwell (1933–34) was an exemplary building with a Calvary group by Gill on the external East wall and keystone sculptures over doors by Vernon Hill. Inside there is plenty of individual work—a font carved by Vernon Hill, wood panelled screens carved with angels, fish, squirrels and birds by James Woodford, cross and candlesticks by the Artificers’ Guild, a mural of the Adoration in the Children’s Corner by Elizabeth Starling and small stained-glass windows by Moira Forsyth. His collaborators were given their freedom but on a miniaturised scale that ended up looking reticent almost to the point of invisibility. —Tanya Harrod, 1999

Edward Maufe, St Thomas the Apostle, 1933–4, with Eric Gill, Calvary Group, 1933, Hanwell, London.

By the 1930s ambitious modernism in church architecture tended to exclude individual artist-craftswomen and men. Francis X. Velarde and Nugent Cachemaille-Day designed every aspect of a church’s interior decoration themselves. But Edward Maufe, influenced by Swedish architecture and by his wife Prudence who from 1915 was an interior decoration consultant at Heals and organised art and craft shows in the firm’s Mansard Gallery, tried both to be modern and to work collaboratively with artists and makers. The results were curious. His church of St Thomas the Apostle at Hanwell (1933–34) was an exemplary building with a Calvary group by Gill on the external East wall and keystone sculptures over doors by Vernon Hill. Inside there is plenty of individual work—a font carved by Vernon Hill, wood panelled screens carved with angels, fish, squirrels and birds by James Woodford, cross and candlesticks by the Artificers’ Guild, a mural of the Adoration in the Children’s Corner by Elizabeth Starling and small stained-glass windows by Moira Forsyth. His collaborators were given their freedom but on a miniaturised scale that ended up looking reticent almost to the point of invisibility.

—Tanya Harrod, 1999

#Edward Maufe      #Eric Gill      #Tanya Harrod      #Architecture      #Sculpture      

5 days ago
Eric Gill at work on the Calvary Group for St Thomas the Apostle church, Hanwell, London, 1933.

Eric Gill at work on the Calvary Group for St Thomas the Apostle church, Hanwell, London, 1933.

#Eric Gill      #Edward Maufe      #Sculpture      #Architecture      

5 days ago
Eric Gill, detail of Odysseus Welcomed from the Sea by Nausikaa, Midland Hotel, Morecambe, 1933. Polished Portland stone relief. … Gill found the chance to convert another major commission from a secular into a spiritual one. In August 1932 he gained the commission, via the architect Oliver Hill, to carve a large figural relief for the dining room of Hill’s new hotel at Morecambe Bay, the Midland, for the Directors of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. Gill’s first designs for this relief show that he wanted to carve a group of naked figures dancing about in shallow water, and he described the idea as: ‘The Hotelier welcomes the bathers to his hotel. On the right two of them are emerging from the water, on the left a young man already landed assists a maiden. The idea can be taken symbolically, allegorically, mystically, metaphorically and heraldically, as well as naturallistically!’ At this stage the relief was definitely a secular and quite sensual piece, with the working title of ‘High Jinks in Paradise’, although Gill implied in his letter to Hill that it could be read on a number of levels. However, the Chairman of the LMS Hotels committee found this too risqué and it was replaced by the rather recondite subject of Odysseus being welcomed by Nausikaa, a subject found in Homer’s Odyssey, and one that was meant to symbolize hospitality. Although this subject is taken from ancient Greece and is seemingly difficult to infuse with a Christian flavour, Gill wrote to his Catholic friend, G.K. Chesterton in 1933, telling him: ‘I was (and still am) away doing a carving on the LMS hotel at Morecambe Bay. (Incidentally: it is what is technically called a “holy picture”—but the LMS don’t know that.)’ Gill does not explain how he turned Odysseus welcomed by Nausikaa into a ‘holy’ work, but it could have something to do with service and loving kindness. The LMS Hotels committee does not appear to have discovered the covert Christian reference and the relief remains another major example of Gill’s thesis: ‘If necessary work is not made holy, recreation becomes idolatry’. —Judith Collins, 1998

Eric Gill, detail of Odysseus Welcomed from the Sea by Nausikaa, Midland Hotel, Morecambe, 1933. Polished Portland stone relief.

… Gill found the chance to convert another major commission from a secular into a spiritual one. In August 1932 he gained the commission, via the architect Oliver Hill, to carve a large figural relief for the dining room of Hill’s new hotel at Morecambe Bay, the Midland, for the Directors of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. Gill’s first designs for this relief show that he wanted to carve a group of naked figures dancing about in shallow water, and he described the idea as: ‘The Hotelier welcomes the bathers to his hotel. On the right two of them are emerging from the water, on the left a young man already landed assists a maiden. The idea can be taken symbolically, allegorically, mystically, metaphorically and heraldically, as well as naturallistically!’ At this stage the relief was definitely a secular and quite sensual piece, with the working title of ‘High Jinks in Paradise’, although Gill implied in his letter to Hill that it could be read on a number of levels. However, the Chairman of the LMS Hotels committee found this too risqué and it was replaced by the rather recondite subject of Odysseus being welcomed by Nausikaa, a subject found in Homer’s Odyssey, and one that was meant to symbolize hospitality. Although this subject is taken from ancient Greece and is seemingly difficult to infuse with a Christian flavour, Gill wrote to his Catholic friend, G.K. Chesterton in 1933, telling him: ‘I was (and still am) away doing a carving on the LMS hotel at Morecambe Bay. (Incidentally: it is what is technically called a “holy picture”—but the LMS don’t know that.)’ Gill does not explain how he turned Odysseus welcomed by Nausikaa into a ‘holy’ work, but it could have something to do with service and loving kindness. The LMS Hotels committee does not appear to have discovered the covert Christian reference and the relief remains another major example of Gill’s thesis: ‘If necessary work is not made holy, recreation becomes idolatry’.

—Judith Collins, 1998

#Eric Gill      #Midland Hotel      #Oliver Hill      #Judith Collins      #Sculpture      

5 days ago
Eric Gill, The Sower, Entrance Hall, Broadcasting House, London, 1932. Corsham stone. Eric Gill, working as a sculptor and as a letter cutter, emerges as the [20th-century British] craftsman who was most successfully involved in architectural commissions. Gill was always conscious of the redundancy of architectural sculpture and his attitude to his secular public commissions was mildly ironic. In 1929 he was commissioned to make sculptures for G. Val Myers’s Broadcasting House in Portland Place. These included figures of Prospero and Ariel over the main doorway and a sculpture of the Sower for the entrance hall. Writing to his brother Cecil he explained that the subject was a pun—the Sower or Broadcaster. ‘Comic thought when you consider the quality of BBC semination with the efforts of a simple countryman sowing corn! However it’s their idea, not mine. Mine not to reason why … mine simply to carve a good image of a broadcaster.’ —Tanya Harrod, 1999

Eric Gill, The Sower, Entrance Hall, Broadcasting House, London, 1932. Corsham stone.

Eric Gill, working as a sculptor and as a letter cutter, emerges as the [20th-century British] craftsman who was most successfully involved in architectural commissions. Gill was always conscious of the redundancy of architectural sculpture and his attitude to his secular public commissions was mildly ironic. In 1929 he was commissioned to make sculptures for G. Val Myers’s Broadcasting House in Portland Place. These included figures of Prospero and Ariel over the main doorway and a sculpture of the Sower for the entrance hall. Writing to his brother Cecil he explained that the subject was a pun—the Sower or Broadcaster. ‘Comic thought when you consider the quality of BBC semination with the efforts of a simple countryman sowing corn! However it’s their idea, not mine. Mine not to reason why … mine simply to carve a good image of a broadcaster.’

—Tanya Harrod, 1999

#Eric Gill      #Broadcasting House      #BBC      #George Val Myer      #Tanya Harrod      #Sculpture      #Architecture      

5 days ago
Eric Gill, Ariel Piping to the Children, Ariel Learns Celestial Music and Ariel Between Wisdom and Gaiety, Broadcasting House, London, 1931–2. Corsham stone reliefs.

Eric Gill, Ariel Piping to the Children, Ariel Learns Celestial Music and Ariel Between Wisdom and Gaiety, Broadcasting House, London, 1931–2. Corsham stone reliefs.

#Eric Gill      #Broadcasting House      #BBC      #George Val Myer      #Sculpture      #Architecture      

5 days ago
Eric Gill, Prospero and Ariel, Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London, 1932–3. Caen stone. Gill began work on this group on 8 January 1932 … He finished finally on 6 March and spent 10 and 13 March all day at the BBC for press interviews. The group was unveiled on 13 March, but not before the Governors of the BBC had asked for and received a reduction in the size of Ariel’s genitals. On 23 March the Manchester Guardian reported that a Tory MP, Mr Mitcheson (Member for St Pancras) had protested in the House of Commons the day before about this sculpture. Mr Mitcheson ‘had asked the Home Secretary if he would instruct the police to compel the directorate of the British Broadcasting Corporation to remove immediately the statue recently placed over the front entrance of Broadcasting House in Portland Place as being objectionable to public morals and decency’. The Home Secretary Sir John Gilmour declined to act and the statue stayed. Mr Mitcheson had gained his fifteen minutes of fame and joined the ranks of politicians who regularly ask for the removal of new sculptures on the grounds of public decency. —Judith Collins, 1998

Eric Gill, Prospero and Ariel, Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London, 1932–3. Caen stone.

Gill began work on this group on 8 January 1932 … He finished finally on 6 March and spent 10 and 13 March all day at the BBC for press interviews. The group was unveiled on 13 March, but not before the Governors of the BBC had asked for and received a reduction in the size of Ariel’s genitals. On 23 March the Manchester Guardian reported that a Tory MP, Mr Mitcheson (Member for St Pancras) had protested in the House of Commons the day before about this sculpture. Mr Mitcheson ‘had asked the Home Secretary if he would instruct the police to compel the directorate of the British Broadcasting Corporation to remove immediately the statue recently placed over the front entrance of Broadcasting House in Portland Place as being objectionable to public morals and decency’. The Home Secretary Sir John Gilmour declined to act and the statue stayed. Mr Mitcheson had gained his fifteen minutes of fame and joined the ranks of politicians who regularly ask for the removal of new sculptures on the grounds of public decency.

—Judith Collins, 1998

#Eric Gill      #Broadcasting House      #BBC      #George Val Myer      #Judith Collins      #Sculpture      #Architecture      

5 days ago