Henry Moore at Tate Britain

As part of my learning log I have been going to exhibitions not all of them recorded here by any means.  Recently I went to the quilts exhibition at the V & A and an Exhibition of video artist Francis Alys - A Story of Deception. Both excellent in very different ways.  However today I went to the Henry Moore exhibition at Tate Britain.  This was a wonderful exhibition and covered most periods of his work from the 1920s to 1960s and explores his work from the early days and the development into abstraction of the human form. He spent much time in the British Museum sketching the ethnographic collection and the influence of these sculptures in his work is obvious from the very beginning.  Afterwards as his work became increasingly abstract other influences become apparent.

The sculptures were of various materials; plaster, wood stone and metal; and there were examples of his wonderful drawings in particular the London underground drawings at the time of the Blitz and his equally renowned Miners.  There were examples of his sketchbooks too - these were particularly inspiring

Fortunately it was not too crowded so I was able to make some quick sketches on my way round; examples of which I include here.

These were made in my small travelling sketchbook in pencil. .  The reclining figure and mother and child motifs featured greatly; however there were masks made in various materials and heads that were very impressive.  Amongst the 150 items shown were very large and very small works.  The difference in scale is not clear from my drawings.  Head 1930 in ironstone was no more than 8 or 10 inches high and the Mother and Child 1932 on the facing page in my book was roughly 4 ft high.