Creating sculptural works on the scale of Henry Moore’s is no singular task. Moore (1898 – 1986) worked with studio assistants, stonemasons and professional foundries in England and abroad to create his monumental sculptures. For his graphic work, Moore collaborated with the best lithographers and engravers of his day, tinkering in diazo-lithography with Stanley Curwen and working directly on printing stones at the Atelier Mourlot in Paris. The fruits of these common labours testify to the success of those shared visions.
Moore also worked with prominent poets to give shape and form to their literary works. Some of these partnerships arose out of a natural affinity: W.H. Auden (1907 – 1973), one of the preeminent poets of the twentieth century, shared many of Moore’s interests in neo-classicism and morality. Both, too, subscribed to an innate and enduring humanist philosophy that shaped much of their respective oeuvres and unified their vision in Auden Poems—Moore Lithographs (1973). La Poésie (1975), in contrast, arose from an offer to illustrate a selection of poems chosen by then President of France, Georges Pompidou. Henry Moore’s signature figures are rendered French provincial through liberal use of layered colour and petal-like motifs, a sympathetic pairing to Pompidou’s consummately modernist selection of French classics.
MOORE: Poetics highlights these literary portfolios, demonstrating the mutability of Moore’s iconic treatment of the human form when responding to literary works. Presenting the portfolios as discrete objects in their own rights, with handcrafted folios, fly-leaf paper and printed texts included, this display evolves over time as the curators turn the pages weekly.
