Henry Moore - A Great Modern Art Sculptor

English artist Henry Spencer Moore (July 30, 1898-August 31, 1986) was born in Castleford, England to Mary Baker and Raymond Spencer Moore, a mining engineer. He was the seventh of eight children in a family that saw poverty often. Moore was a happy child however, throughout. While in elementary schools in Castleford, he started woodcarving and clay modeling. Michelangelo inspired him and he decided on becoming a sculptor. Moore began teaching at a school in 1915 and joined army in 1917.

In September 1919, he returned to the elementary school teaching for a short time. He then went to the Leeds School of Art where he got a scholarship to study at the Royal College of Art in London. Moore got a six-month travelling scholarship in 1924 and he used it to travel to Northern Italy analyzing the works of Italian artists, such as Michelangelo (Italian, 1475-1564), Giovanni Pisano (1250-1315), and Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337) to name some. In 1929, the artist married Irina Radetsky (1907-89), a Russian art student.

Moore is renowned for his abstract colossal bronze sculptures. Most of his creations are human figures, especially female, showing the mother-and-child relationship along with other reclining sculptures. Moore played a major role in bringing a particular kind of Modernism into the United Kingdom. His huge marble and bronze sculptures brought him a lot of fame. Following the Second World War (1939-45), he stopped direct carving and began producing maquettes. By the end of 1940s, he began creating sculptures through modeling, creating the figures in plaster or clay, and then casting them in bronze through the lost wax technique.

Moore also produced three brilliant architectural sculptures in his art career. He agreed to his first public commission in 1928 for West Wind at the London Underground Building, 55 Broadway, London. Soon after, he finished a concrete screen for the Time-Life Building, again in London. Then in 1955, he made the 'Wall Relief no. 1,' his one and only creation in carved brick, at the Bouwcentrum in Rotterdam. This structure, made of 16,000 bricks, was constructed of two Dutch bricklayers.

Some of Henry Moore's most important works include:

• Four-Piece Composition: Reclining Figure (1934)
• Reclining Figure (Wood) (1935-36)
• Draped Reclining Figure (1952-53)
• Reclining Figure: Angles (1979)
• Oval with Points (1968-1970)
• Hill Arches (1972-1973)

During 1950s, his sculpting shifted towards family captures. Moore received the Companion of Honor in 1955 and the Order of Merit in 1963. The artist lived prudently throughout his life and was immensely wealthy in his later life. Most of his earnings later went into the Henry Moore Foundation, which is involved in supporting art promotion and education. Moore died in 1986, at the age of 88, at his home in Much Hadham, Hertfordshire.

Source : Ezinearticles