“Well I really began to want to do graphic work, or prints, when I discovered that one could change a print without losing what you’d got already. It had its own, special possibilities. In a graphic work you can try out ideas and not lose the previous one, because you can retain the previous states – and you’ve got prints of it, anyhow. So it allows you to experiment.”

Henry Moore (1898 – 1986) was one of the most important artists of the 20th century; a British sculptor in stone, wood and bronze and also a prolific printmaker. Born in Yorkshire, he studied at Leeds School of Art and later taught at the Royal College of Art and Chelsea School of Art. His work spans an important period for Britain and he became a well known figure in his own time with a renowned reputation; Moore exhibited at the International Surrealist Exhibitions in London 1936 and Paris 1938, was an Official War Artist in 1940–2, he joined an artist group Unit One along with Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Paul Nash and became a trustee of the Tate Gallery and the National Gallery. He gained further international acclaim with the first major international retrospective of his work held in 1946 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1948 he had a one-man show in the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, winning the International Sculpture Prize and in 1963 was awarded the British Order of Merit.

Prolific themes arising in his prints include the mother and child, the reclining nude and exploring the relationship between interior and exterior forms. Since Moore often used prints as a medium to explore ideas to be later realised as sculpture, his prints and works on paper include much shade and tone, sculpting the figures in three dimensions. Moore’s interest in natural form and the undulating lines of hills which are echoed in the reclining female forms may be influenced from his childhood experiences of growing up in the picturesque hills of Yorkshire. The relationship between mother and child continually punctuates his prints and the exploration of the themes of protection and shielding. His prints often include multiple workings of the mind on one sheet, with the figures intertwined in differing poses or stages of movement. As Moore later spoke about printmaking; “Well I really began to want to do graphic work, or prints, when I discovered that one could change a print without losing what you’d got already. It had its own, special possibilities. In a graphic work you can try out ideas and not lose the previous one, because you can retain the previous states – and you’ve got prints of it, anyhow. So it allows you to experiment.”

Sims Reed Gallery has hosted two recent exhibitions of Moore’s prints entitled ‘Henry Moore & Gérald Cramer: 25 Years of Art & Friendship’ in 2014 and ‘Henry Moore ‘Sheep and other etchings’ and hold many of his prints.

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