Barbara Hepworth & Henry Moore | Graphics

The success of the Twelve Lithographs series encouraged Hepworth to develop these techniques and subject matter further and she invited Jones to spend a summer holiday with his young family in St. Ives so that he could guide her work over a longer period. The Aegean Suite of 1970-71 is a continuation of the themes of Twelve Lithographs, but further nourished by the subject matter, landscape and a personal connection to the Aegean Islands, which Hepworth visited in August 1954 after the tragic death of her son Paul. Works such as Desert Forms, Sun and Water and Fragment marry the abstract sculptural vocabulary of Twelve Lithographs with a poignant emotional charge, while the heightened palette of Itea and Olympus introduce a vivid new element to Hepworth’s lithographic work.

Sandwiched between Twelve Lithographs and the Aegean Suite was a successful foray into screenprinting. Published in 1970, Opposing Forms was the result of Hepworth’s collaboration with Chris and Rose Prater at the Kelpra Studio. Works such as Two Opposing Forms and Orchid are an exciting exploration into a different kind of mark making as colour, texture and tonality are mediated through the painstaking build-up of layers of colour on the screenprinting bed.

The diazo printing process used in Reclining Mother and Child has an earlier echo in the collotype process pioneered by Ganymede Press in the 1960s and used by Moore in the creation of his Shelter Sketch Book portfolio published in 1967. Moore’s wartime shelter drawings and sketchbooks are some of his most iconic non-sculptural works. During the Second World War, Moore abandoned sculpture for drawing and roamed the underground station shelters making notes of the huddled masses of frightened, gaunt and shrunken Londoners sheltering from the Blitz. He made notes rather than sketches for ethical reasons, as Moore stated: ‘I never made any sketches in the Underground. It would have been like drawing in the hold of a slave ship. I would wander about sometimes passing a particular group that interested me half a dozen times. Sometimes, in a corner where I could not be seen, I would make notes on the back of an envelope.’

These works encapsulate the turbulence and claustrophobia of the wars of the twentieth century, while also reminding us of the beauty of the human form. With rounded shapes, intimate relationships, and intricate drapery, Moore often turns the powerless sheltering Londoners into heroic, classical types. At other times, their suffering is the focus of the composition. This portfolio of collotypes, published in 1967 by Marlborough Fine Art, is a compilation of eighty prints from Moore’s sketches. Each of the portfolios is signed and numbered on the frontispiece, though the collotypes are not signed individually. The Shelter Sketch Book portfolio was issued with seven limited edition lithographs including Black Seated Figure on Orange Background, Three Standing Figures and Two Seated Women. Printed on delicate Japon nacré paper this last work in particular is a wonderful example of the subtlety of mark that Moore could combine with a vibrant pallet in his best lithographs.

Moore was in the habit of developing his printmaking ideas to act as a sort of sketchbook for his sculptural work. Many of his editioned lithographs and etchings have the character of actual sketchbooks or preparatory watercolours. Moore’s prints, more obviously than Hepworth’s, directly correlate to his three-dimensional figures and are emblematic of his view of the importance of sketch books and of drawing for the fermentation of ideas.

The Sculptural Ideas series of etchings is a fine example of this tendency and these pieces read like pages out of a sketchbook, with autonomous sculptural figures placed in compositions of five or eight on atmospheric backgrounds. Rendered in sumptuous colour etching and published in 1980-81 these prints are extraordinary examples of the medium and were the result of a personal pilgrimage that Moore made towards the end of his life to work once again with the master printers at 2RC Editrice in Rome and with Walter Rossi in particular. The Sculptural Ideas etchings are eloquent reminders of the value that Moore placed on these collaborations and how these nourished his graphic work with new ideas right up to the end of his career.  

Christy Slobogin & Vincent Eames, June 2020