Rarely seen without a tweed suit and tie, for an avant-garde artist Henry Moore cut a very conventional figure. Were it not for the contorted monolithic sculptural forms dotting the garden, his house at Perry Green, Hertfordshire would point to it being the possession of a Home Counties accountant not a titan of the art world.
No doubt his everyman authenticity was a big part of what allowed him to reach so far into the national psyche. In essence he was relatable, pitching his thoughts on art in no nonsense Yorkshire vowels.
Moore came from a Castleford mining family. Humble beginnings but ambitious about his future, he worked hard to get into Leeds School of Art and then harder still to secure a place at the Royal College of Art.
After his formal training, Moore established a studio in Hampstead, where he joined the ranks of British modernists, alongside luminaries like Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson. In 1940, he married and relocated to Perry Green, where he resided until his passing in 1986.
Moore was a pioneer in a number of ways. Contrary to appearances, he was to become an unlikely media star, perhaps the first British art star. Multiple films about him at work and interviews on prime-time shows made him not just the star of postwar British art but lead to him becoming a truly global art star.
Another pioneering factor was his willingness to employ a team of assistants to help produce the work. Such was the demand and so prodigious were his ideas that he saw early on he would need help. Unusually for the time he had no preciousness about this. He sought out talented young artists as his assistants, many of whom went on to become the next wave of British art stars after him. Sir Anthony Caro was the most pre-eminent of them but there were many more. It’s been said that Moore was responsible for a renaissance in post war British art. His assistants spoke of his generosity in helping them with their work and the foundation he set up before his death continues to support and fund British artists today.
This half factory system of work allowed for over 1000 sculptures to be produced in his lifetime, shipped and placed in all corners of the globe. And here at Perry Green it’s fascinating to see studios full of his drawings, maquettes and carvings. It’s as if he and the team have just nipped out for a tea break and will be popping back any second.
His themes changed a little during his lifetime, the main one of which was the reclining figure, sometimes with child. Elemental in subject and form, there are sculptures dotted around the gardens, on plinths amongst mown grass lawns.
Visiting art galleries with my mother growing up I always found something contained and inaccessible about Moore’s sculptures. For me they really come into their own here in the wild of the surrounding fields, amongst the sheep and off the plinths. Unrestrained, tweed jacket off, tie loosened, top button undone; they really fly.
TEXT: Pete Bartlett
IMAGES: Pete Bartlett
