Works on paper: 1950 - 1980
26 May - 26 June, 2022
Eames Fine Art Gallery is delighted to present an exhibition of works on paper by Henry Moore from the artist's post-war period through to his later years.
Comprising original lithographs, etchings and collotypes the exhibition brings together works from Moore's seminal Shelter Sketchbook series and Prometheus illustrations, alongside reclining nudes and mother and child studies.
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“The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for the rest of your life. And the most important thing is, it must be something you cannot possibly do.”
- Henry Moore
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Prométhée, 1950, Lithograph.
Prometheus Illustrations
Escaping the Blitz, Henry Moore moved from London to Hertfordshire in 1940 and, due to the scarcity of marble and bronze, ceased production of large-scale sculpture in favour of works on paper.
An important project to emerge from this period was André Gide’s adaptation of Goethe’s Prometheus, a book for which Moore provided eight full page illustrations and typography.
This exhibition brings together these eight lithographs alongside the cover, title page and letters Moore designed to begin each chapter.
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Prometheus Illustrations
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Henry MooreProméthée, 1950£500.00
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Henry MooreHead of Prometheus, 1950£750.00
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Henry MooreMinerva, Prometheus and Pandora, 1950£750.00
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Henry MoorePrometheus on the Rock, 1950Sold
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Henry MooreThe Four Sketches, 1950Sold
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Henry MooreTwilight Landscape, 1950£750.00
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Henry MooreDeath of Mira, 1950£750.00
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Henry MoorePandora and the Imprisoned Statues, 1950Sold
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Henry MooreTrees, 1950£750.00
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"The violent quarrel between the abstractionists and the surrealists seems to me quite unnecessary. All good art has contained both abstract and surrealist elements, just as it has contained both classical and romantic elements – order and surprise, intellect and imagination, conscious and unconscious. Both sides of the artist's personality must play their part."
- Henry Moore, Listener, 18 August 1937
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Reclining Nudes | Mother & Child | Figurative Works
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Henry MooreReclining Mother and Child with Blue Background, 1982£8,900.00
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Henry MooreSeated Figure Back, 1974Sold
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Henry MooreReclining Figure, 1976Sold
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Henry MooreSculptural Ideas 4, 1980Sold
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Henry MooreSculptural Ideas 3, 1980£2,350.00
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Henry MooreFive Ideas for Sculpture, 1981Sold
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Henry MooreSeven Sculpture Ideas II, 1980 - 1981£3,950.00
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Henry MooreSeated Mother and Child, 1980/81£3,950.00
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Henry MooreEight Sculpture Ideas, 1980£3,950.00
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Henry MooreTwo Seated Women, 1967Sold
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Henry MooreThree Standing Figures (Shelter Sketchbook) , 1966Sold
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Henry MooreViolet Torso on Orange Stripes, 1967£2,500.00
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Henry MooreSix Mother and Child Studies, 1976£2,800.00
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Henry MooreFamily Group, 1950£6,950.00
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Henry MooreSeated Figures, 1974Sold
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Henry MooreMother and Child XXVIII, 1983£4,300.00
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Henry MooreReclining Figure, 1974Sold
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Henry MooreGirl I, 1974Sold
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Henry MooreReclining Figure Back, 1974Sold
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Henry MooreReclining Figures with Blue Central Composition, 1966Sold
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Henry MooreReclining Girl on Bed, 1974Sold
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Henry MoorePandora and the Imprisoned Statues, 1950Sold
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Untitled LXI (Shelter Sketchbook)
CollotypeThe Shelter Sketchbook series
One September evening in 1940, Henry Moore was returning home from dinner on the tube and got stuck. Above ground, the Nazis were carpet-bombing London for the fourth night in a row and, like hundreds of his neighbours, Moore was forced to take refuge underground, awaiting the all-clear.
Moore recounted: "We weren’t allowed out for an hour because of the bombing. I spent the time looking at rows of people sleeping on the platforms. I had never seen so many reclining figures... Amid the grim tension, I noticed groups of strangers formed together into intimate groups and children asleep within feet of the passing trains."
Moore would go on to spend time in several tube stations during the Blitz, carefully recording his experiences in a series of sketches that would prove to be some of the most important artworks to emerge from the Second World War. Under Moore's supervision, collotype prints were later made from his sketchbooks and published in 1967, forming an important landmark in British figuration of the 20th Century.
These astonishing depictions of human resilience take on a renewed poignancy in today’s world as we come to terms with the loss of life brought about by the pandemic and in the light of the ongoing war in Ukraine. £50 from the sale of each of these works will be donated to charity to assist our Ukrainian neighbours.More works from the Shelter Sketchbook series can be viewed here
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The Shelter Sketchbook series
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Henry MooreUntitled LXXI (Shelter Sketchbook), 1967£280.00
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Henry MooreUntitled LX (Shelter Sketchbook), 1967£280.00
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Henry MooreUntitled LXXVI (Shelter Sketchbook), 1967£280.00
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Henry MooreUntitled XV (Shelter Sketchbook), 1967£280.00
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Henry MooreUntitled XXXIII (Shelter Sketchbook), 1967£280.00
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Henry MooreUntitled XXXI (Shelter Sketchbook), 1967£280.00
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Henry MooreUntitled XXXVII (Shelter Sketchbook) , 1967Sold
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Henry MooreUntitled LXI (Shelter Sketchbook), 1967£280.00
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Henry MooreUntitled LXV (Shelter Sketchbook), 1967Sold
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Henry MooreUntitled LXXIII (Shelter Sketchbook) , 1967Sold
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Henry MooreUntitled XLI (Shelter Sketchbook) , 1967Sold
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Henry MooreUntitled XLIII (Shelter Sketchbook), 1967£280.00
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Henry MooreUntitled LIV (Shelter Sketchbook) , 1967£280.00
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Henry MooreUntitled LVI (Shelter Sketchbook), 1967Sold
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Henry MooreUntitled XXV (Shelter Sketchbook), 1967£280.00
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Sheep Sketchbook | Sheep Back View, 1972
Moore lived in Much Hadham, a small village in East Hertfordshire, and worked in a studio overlooking a sheep field. It was whilst working in this small room that Henry Moore first became aware of the sheep grazing outside. He began to draw them, exploring the way they moved and the shape of their bodies under the fleece. In 1972 Moore presented a large number of these sketches to his daughter Mary in a Sheep Sketchbook.
"I watched a ewe standing between two big rocks the shape of goat’s cheeses. They were just far enough apart to allow the animal in, and I began to understand the relationship Henry Moore perceived between sheep and stones. He saw sheep as animate stones, the makers of their own landscape."
- Roger Deakin, quoted in Robert Macfarlane, “Force of nature“, The Guardian, 2006.
1972
Original etching on paper.
Signed in pencil.
Numbered from the edition of 80.
213 x 187mm
£4,500