A cup of tea with Henry Moore

Our friend Marjorie has just left. Our place has been her base,  as she's buzzed around  having all kinds of interesting encounters and experiences.   We don't see each other very often, since the Atlantic is in the way, so I was pleased to discover something new about her on this trip - that she is a longtime fan of the sculptor Henry Moore.

Well!    I'd just won a couple of tickets to an exhibition at the Henry Moore Studios and Gallery in Hertfordshire.   I hadn't been planning to use the tickets - to be honest, I didn't remember entering the contest. And although I knew of the Henry Moore sculpture garden in Wakefield, I didn't realise his home and studios had been so near to London.

But of course we took a trip.

Moore and his wife lived for decades in an ancient house at the end of a very rustic lane,  the type where two cars find it hard to pass. They modernised it piecemeal where necessary, but the interior's surprisingly domesticated, almost conventional in parts, with old fashioned cream telephones in almost every room and a kitchen that wouldn't win any prizes in a design contest.

However,  the fact that it's crammed with art books and natural and ethnographic curiosities gives the game away that artists lived here.  (Moore's wife was also an artist).   Then there are also the carpets in startling shades of orange and mauve, and curtains of the textiles he designed himself to remind you that this is not really the kind of home your mum or gran might have lived in....

Outside, arrays of cacti are grown in little greenhouses.

 An attractive, large-windowed visitor centre, cafe and shop has been built in the house's grounds, and offers views of the orchard, and the lawns where many of Moore's enormous sculptures are shown over several acres.

Moore was versatile, and although sculpture was his main love, he also designed tapestries. Some are displayed in a 16th century barn, copied from his small sketches in charcoal and watercolour. Although the drawings are deliberately tiny, the tapestries are huge, and use endless variations of colours and textures and different types of yarn to reinterpret the subtle shadings of the tiny originals. Moore said that he loved the change which the weaving process made to his drawings, and it does give a new understanding to the works.   I looked at them for a long time.

I always like to show photos of what I am talking about, particularly with art, but unfortunately photos aren't allowed inside the house, studios or display areas, and I can't find any online which illustrate this wonderful quality of the textiles. Even the site's own image gallery  doesn't show it.

Still, explore the site if you want more photos and information, take my word that the studios and galleries were interesting, and let me share with you my own view of what I was allowed to photograph on a quiet, grey, overcast day. I'll show you the cowslips and the apple blossom just finishing in the orchard, the sheep whose shapes so inspired Moore grazing in the adjoining fields, and the sculptures seeming at home in their surroundings....

Cowslips in the orchard. 

 There's something alarming, almost devilish about this, at least to me.

 I don't like thinking too intellectually about visual art, so I was glad to have the chance to see these works in real life to see what Moore was trying to do. It's so thought provoking and interesting both at large scale and in close up; every line can make you think of something - or several things.  

Here, I saw his house framed through a statue based on a reclining figure.  I was standing beside what would be the left thigh, with the left leg... see the characteristic shape of an ankle on the left? You do feel that the sculptures are alive, in an alien way, and that's part of his genius.

Moore was conventionally trained, and very gifted at more orthodox work. I did snatch one picture, showing a drawing he did when at art school - at present the centre has a show about the artistic influences on his work.  Even in this very different and far more conventional style, his talent and individualism shows.  Don't you feel you might have met this gentleman, so vivid and alive with that determined set of his jaw?    

Or, on second thoughts, is it his hair that bulges out at the jaw? Or a swelling on his face?  And those stubborn eyes, staring steadfastly upwards - look closely and you'll see they're not set naturally in his face. One looks upwards the other does not.   What is Moore really conveying about this man, apparently so naturalistic and alive?   

The picture below is one of my favourite sculptures of those on display. A bit like vertebrae from this angle

Textured like bone. 

And I liked that you could walk inside this huge female figure. 

Here it is from a distance.

I see in this sculpture a thoughtful face with its chin on its hand.  T. didn't see that at all.  What do you see?

Having spent so long looking at sculpture, I began to see it myself in the nature around me. 

And so, back to the visitor centre. We reached it just as it started to rain... 

... for a nice cup of tea.  I believe Henry Moore also enjoyed a nice cup of tea,  since his house certainly contained a teapot out in the conservatory that was seemingly ready for use!

Henry Moore Studios & Gardens
Dane Tree House
Perry Green
Herts
SG10 6EE
T: +44 (0)1279 843 333