Foreword

I first saw sculptures by Henry Moore (1898- 1986) as a young girl in Tate Britain. Recumbent Figure (1938) made a particularly powerful impression on me. I wondered how one could capture a woman’s soft forms in hard stone so powerfully and sensually. To quote Michelangelo, ‘the sculpture is already hidden in the stone’.. Henry Moore himself said ’My sculpture has a force, is a strength, is a life, a vitality from inside it, so that you have a sense that the form is pressing from inside trying to burst.’

Henry Moore’s works kindled my love of sculpture, so I am very proud that Museum Beelden aan Zee is presenting a major retrospective by this grandmaster of modern sculpture. The secret of his work is laid bare through a host of objects and sculptures. As a visitor you are carried along through the evolution that Henry Moore himself underwent as both a traditional and an innovative sculptor.

Henry Moore: Form and Material focuses on nature’s influence on his work. He developed much of his unique vocabulary through found objects that he came across on walks outdoors, such as stones, bones and shells polished by weather, wind and water. Objects of that kind demonstrated to him not only the most important principles of form and rhythm, but also how nature itself acts as a sculptor.

Moore’s choices of materials and treatment were the basis for some of his most iconic works. Hannah Higham, Senior Curator of Collections & Research of the Henry Moore Foundation, focuses in her article on the use of Moore’s main and most amorphous material: ‘Perhaps however, the material Moore uses to greatest effect throughout his career is space.’

The exhibition was organised in close collaboration with the Henry Moore Foundation, which was created in 1977 to administer his estate. Curator of modern and contemporary sculpture Joost Bergman and assistant curator Emanuela Vargas were assisted in compiling this show by Sebastiano Barassi, Head of Henry Moore Collections & Programmes. I am grateful to them and to project leader Rolien van der Harten and designer Bart van den Tooren for their commitment and expertise.

I would also like to thank the lenders, the Henry Moore Foundation and Museon Omniversum, the Lida Fonds, the Board of Trustees of museum Beelden aan Zee, the Vriendenloterij, Fonds 21, the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, the Turing Foundation, the Mondriaanfonds, Van Lanschot Kempen and the Don Quixote Foundation for their vital contribution to the realisation of this unique retrospective of Henry Moore in the Netherlands.

Henry Moore believed that the landscape is the best setting for his sculptures. Nature in this exhibition is fortunately never far away, literally too. For everywhere you go in this museum you are surrounded by the dune landscape. I invite you to go for a stroll along the seafront after visiting the exhibition. And I promise you that a shell or pebble will never again be the same when you look with Henry Moore’s eyes.

Brigitte Bloksma Director Museum Beelden aan Zee