Henry Moore

HENRY MOORE (United Kingdom, 1898 - 1986).
Untitled, from the series "Auden Poems", 1973.
Lithograph, copy 21/75.
Signed and justified in pencil.
Measurements: 25 x 31.5 cm (print); 64 x 51.5 cm (paper).

The "Auden Poems" series (made between 1973 and 1974) is one of the most fascinating collaborations between literature and the visual arts of the 20th century, where Henry Moore illustrates a selection of poems by his childhood friend, W.H. Auden.

Henry Moore trained at the Leeds School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. Although during his beginnings he followed the romantic style of the Victorian era, he gradually developed his own language, influenced by Italian Renaissance artists such as Giotto, Giovanni Pisano and Michelangelo, and also by the sculpture of the Toltec-Maya culture. His early works of the 1920s also show a certain influence of the aerodynamic forms of Constantin Brancusi. During the following decade his work would be influenced by Picasso and the avant-garde abstract artists, both in his drawings and sculptures. Thus, many of his works of this period approach abstraction, some of them being rounded pieces carved in wood, with numerous cuts and holes, often covered by veils of fine metal wire. However, Moore's main and most permanent influence came from the world of nature. In his mature period, beginning with "Reclining Figure" (1936, City Art Gallery, Wakefield), Moore would employ swollen, rounded, undulating forms, with hollows and rounded perforations reflecting natural forms. His favorite subjects, from this point on, include mothers with their children, family groups, fallen warriors and, above all, the reclining human figure, which he continued to depict throughout his career, whether worked in wood or stone or, from 1950, in bronze and marble. In 1955 he received the Order of the Companions of Honor, and the Order of Merit in 1963. He was also a member of the boards of the National Gallery in London and the Tate. Moore is currently represented in the most important museums around the world, such as the MoMA in New York, where a retrospective was dedicated to him in 1946; the Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, the National Gallery and the Tate in London, the Metropolitan in New York, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, etc.