Kew Gardens - Join the Kew

Words by Tinx Newton. Pictures from RBG Kew
This feature was originally printed in the November edition of Surrey Life

Henry Moore at Kew runs until Sunday March 30
Have you already visited the exhibition and taken some great photos of the sculptures? Well, don't be shy, share your pictures with us and your fellow readers in the Surrey Life gallery, here


Inspiration from landscapes and nature

As an artist who found inspiration from landscapes and nature, Henry Moore would have surely approved of the setting for the first major exhibition of his work for two decades. Twenty-one years after his death, the Henry Moore Foundation has carefully arranged the transportation of more than 28 of his massive sculptures to The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew where they will remain on display until March of next year.

Moore created his works of art with the great outdoors in mind and the 300 acres at Kew present a huge variety of settings, from formal gardens to wildlife meadows and woods. The exhibition consists of large-scale bronzes (and one fibreglass piece) from the last 30 years of Moore’s life and is the first substantial exhibition of his outdoor works to be held since 1987.

“We are delighted to host such a significant exhibition at Kew,” says the director of The Royal Botanic Gardens, Professor Stephen Hopper. “Henry Moore was not only one of the 20th century’s greatest sculptors but he also took inspiration from nature and the unique landscape of Kew Gardens provides a fitting backdrop for his work.”

A potted history...

Moore was born in Castleford, West Yorkshire, in 1898, the seventh of eight children to Raymond Spencer Moore and Mary Baker. At junior school in Castleford, he enjoyed modelling in clay and carving in wood, and at the age of 11, he decided to become a sculptor after learning of Michelangelo’s achievements. 

  At Castleford Secondary School, his art teacher introduced him to many different aspects of art and, with her encouragement, he became determined to follow a creative career. However, after leaving school he took up teaching, influenced by his parents’ reservations of him becoming a sculptor, which they classed as ‘manual labour’.

In 1917, at the height of World War I, Moore was called up into the army. When the war ended the following year, he received an ex-serviceman’s grant to continue his education and became the first student of sculpture at Leeds School of Art. Whilst there, he met fellow art student Barbara Hepworth who also became famous as a sculptor and they remained friends for many years.

In 1921, he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in London and extended his knowledge of primitive art and sculpture by studying the ethnographic collections at the V&A and the British Museum. But feeling dissatisfied with established forms of sculpture, he developed a style of direct carving in which imperfections in the material and tool marks were incorporated into the finished sculpture. In doing so, he had to justify his technique to his academic tutors who did not appreciate his modern approach.

Despite this, Moore was appointed an instructor in the sculpture department of the RCA after finishing his studies. He was only required to teach two days a week, which gave him plenty of time to pursue his own work. Appreciation of his art began to grow and his first one-man exhibition at the Warren Gallery in London in 1928 created a surge of interest.

Moore’s lifelong fascination with natural forms is evident from his early sketches and notes. A simple inscription, ‘remember pebbles on the beach’, is pencilled on the cover of a 1926 sketchbook.

“I have always been interested in landscape (I never read on a train – I have to look out of the window in case I miss something),” he observed. “As well as landscape views and cloud formations, I find that all natural forms are a source of unending interest – tree trunks, the growth of branches from the trunk, each finding its individual air-space, the texture and variety of grasses, the shape of pebbles etc. The whole of nature is an endless demonstration of shape and form.”

A love of nature...

Many of the objects that inspired his sculptures are on display in the Nash Conservatory at Kew and there we can see at close hand his fascinating collection of bones, stones, driftwood and shells, which he called his ‘library of natural forms’. The realisation that many of these seemingly everyday objects were carefully chosen as the inspiration for some of Moore’s finest work is somehow very moving. To look out of the window and connect a massive sculpture with a tiny rock or bone from Moore’s ‘library’ is a complete revelation – suddenly, it all makes sense.

For this reason, a visit to this small but perfectly formed ‘exhibition within an exhibition’ is essential in the journey to understand and appreciate Moore’s work. Photographs, quotes and anecdotes help build up a picture of this unassuming artist who worked so prolifically.
Malcolm Woodward, who worked as Moore’s assistant for many years, explains how the sculptor organised his team.

“Our daily routine was very ordinary really, and Moore very much left us to get on with our work,” he recalls. “Once he was happy with a maquette, he would ask an assistant to make it up into a working model. It might be six times bigger, for instance, which enabled him to see whether it was likely to work at full size. We were always careful not to create figures that were actually lifesize – they needed to be larger than life.”

Moore only enlarged around one in ten of his maquettes, being very aware that there was a right size for every idea. Hence, the sculptures in the current exhibition at Kew should be treated with some respect. Their presence within the gardens is powerful and yet somehow comforting. With their wonderful curves and strong, earthy colours, they are almost bigger than the landscape itself.

A growing obsession...

As he grew older, his pieces became larger, creating added problems for the curators of future exhibitions. But he always wanted his sculptures to be outside and free standing, not restricted by the confines of gallery perimeter. He insisted there was no back or front to his work and that each piece should be seen from 360 degrees. He also chose minimal titles for his works.

“Moore didn’t like titles,” continues Malcolm Woodward. “He chose a few functional words, which forced the viewer to choose their own titles. He didn’t want to put ideas into people’s heads.”

Indeed, when Moore’s niece asked why his sculptures had such simple titles, he replied: “All art should have a certain mystery and should make demands on the spectator. Giving a sculpture or a drawing too explicit a title takes away part of that mystery so that the spectator moves on to the next object, making no effort to ponder the meaning of what he has just seen.”

As Moore’s popularity as an artist grew, he began to worry about his legacy. By 1977, he was paying about a million pounds a year in income tax, and so to mitigate this tax burden he established the Henry Moore Foundation as a registered charity. The foundation was established to promote the public appreciation of art and to preserve Moore’s sculptures. It now runs Moore’s former estate, at Perry Green in Hertfordshire, as a gallery and museum. At the edge of a windswept sheep field, Moore’s tiny maquette studio still remains and within stands an old wicker chair, cane, turntable and cardboard boxes full of flintstones and plaster odds and ends.

Over 20 years after his death, Moore’s work never stands still and each piece will change during its time at Kew. As the grass grows at the base of the statues and the rain begins to mark the bronze, so the sculptures will blend more and more with their surrounding landscape.
As Moore once said, “Sculpture is an art of the open air. Daylight, sunlight, is necessary to it, and for me, its best setting and complement is nature.”

• The Henry Moore exhibition runs at Kew Gardens, Richmond, until Sunday March 30 2008. Open daily from 9.30am to 4.15pm. Last admission to the Gardens is at 3.45pm. Glasshouses and galleries close at 3.45pm. Admission is £12.25 adults, £10.25 concessions and FREE to children under the age of 17. For further information, call 020 8332 5655, email info@kew.org or visit the website at www.kew.org

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