Henry Moore Artwork Catalogue
Auden Poems, Moore Lithographs.
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GERE John. Preface.
(Explains as in the quotation above how the exhibition evolved lays emphasis on the black drawings and claims that "if by some unimaginable disaster his sculptures were totally obliterated his drawings etchings and lithographs would still establish him as one of the major artists of the time").
RUSSELL John. Auden/Moore.
(Discusses Auden and Moore as people and outlines Moore's approaches to the poems and the work; stressing the Coal Mine Drawings and the influence of Seurat as important background sources).
MOORE Henry. Introduction.
(Outlines the importance to his work of the British Museum and the concept of using works by Rembrandt Seurat Seghers and others as relevant influences. "In this exhibition I have tried to show some of the steps that preceded the Auden illustrations steps that go back over nearly half a century.").
MOORE Henry. Section one: Life drawing.
("For me life drawing has been a continual struggle to understand the complete three-dimensional form of the model and to express it on the flat surface of the paper." The two main kinds of drawing are based on outline and perspective on one hand and light and shade on the other. The black drawings are founded "on solid three-dimensional light-and-shade drawing... People so often think that in drawing one uses only one's intellect and intelligence leaving out emotion and sympathy. This is not so because one cannot observe clearly without understanding and feeling").
MOORE Henry. Section two: Spatial and pictorial drawing.
("By pictorial drawing I m ean setting the subject in space." The distinction between a painter's drawing and a sculptor's drawing is disliked: "In many of my drawings for sculpture I have placed objects in space sometimes indoors and sometimes in a landscape. I think my attempt to draw spatially is parallel to my early tendency to make holes in carvings: a hole in a piece of stone gives it thickness and depth by connecting the back to the front... The sculptor is or should be no less concerned with space than the painter" in order to "break the tyranny of the flat plane of the paper and open up the suggestion of space. Mystery plays a large and enlivening part in our lives... We are perpetually intrigued and fascinated by the unknown").
MOORE Henry. Section three: The Coalmine drawings.
(Explains how he came to undertake the drawings and his feelings and intentions below ground "at first like some terrible man-made inferno" and later problems like "expressing the gritty grubby smears of black coal-dust on the miners' bodies and faces at the same time as the anatomy underneath". Along with Seurat the Coal Mine Drawings have influenced his later work).
MOORE Henry. Section four: Black and white graphics.
(Short note on the connection between the Stonehenge Elephant Skull and Auden illustrations).
MOORE Henry. Section five: The book.
(Explains briefly his approach to the illustration of the poems via his Stonehenge series. "I decided not so much to illustrate as to complement or even contrast").
Section six: Auden memorabilia.
(This part of the exhibition included notebooks photographs together with Moore's drawings for the masks in the first Group Theatre production of The Dance of Death)."
Bib. Number0003805
Auden Poems, Moore Lithographs.
PublisherBritish Museum
Place PublishedLondon
Year1974
Date & Collation(24 April-30 June).48pp(26 illus).
LanguageEnglish
More InformationAn exhibition of a book dedicated by Henry Moore to W.H. Auden with related drawings. The nucleus of this exhibition is an advance copy presented to the Department of Prints and Drawings by the artist of the selection of poems by W.H. Auden illustrated or it would perhaps be truer to say interpreted with lithographs by Henry Moore..." (See 0003835).GERE John. Preface.
(Explains as in the quotation above how the exhibition evolved lays emphasis on the black drawings and claims that "if by some unimaginable disaster his sculptures were totally obliterated his drawings etchings and lithographs would still establish him as one of the major artists of the time").
RUSSELL John. Auden/Moore.
(Discusses Auden and Moore as people and outlines Moore's approaches to the poems and the work; stressing the Coal Mine Drawings and the influence of Seurat as important background sources).
MOORE Henry. Introduction.
(Outlines the importance to his work of the British Museum and the concept of using works by Rembrandt Seurat Seghers and others as relevant influences. "In this exhibition I have tried to show some of the steps that preceded the Auden illustrations steps that go back over nearly half a century.").
MOORE Henry. Section one: Life drawing.
("For me life drawing has been a continual struggle to understand the complete three-dimensional form of the model and to express it on the flat surface of the paper." The two main kinds of drawing are based on outline and perspective on one hand and light and shade on the other. The black drawings are founded "on solid three-dimensional light-and-shade drawing... People so often think that in drawing one uses only one's intellect and intelligence leaving out emotion and sympathy. This is not so because one cannot observe clearly without understanding and feeling").
MOORE Henry. Section two: Spatial and pictorial drawing.
("By pictorial drawing I m ean setting the subject in space." The distinction between a painter's drawing and a sculptor's drawing is disliked: "In many of my drawings for sculpture I have placed objects in space sometimes indoors and sometimes in a landscape. I think my attempt to draw spatially is parallel to my early tendency to make holes in carvings: a hole in a piece of stone gives it thickness and depth by connecting the back to the front... The sculptor is or should be no less concerned with space than the painter" in order to "break the tyranny of the flat plane of the paper and open up the suggestion of space. Mystery plays a large and enlivening part in our lives... We are perpetually intrigued and fascinated by the unknown").
MOORE Henry. Section three: The Coalmine drawings.
(Explains how he came to undertake the drawings and his feelings and intentions below ground "at first like some terrible man-made inferno" and later problems like "expressing the gritty grubby smears of black coal-dust on the miners' bodies and faces at the same time as the anatomy underneath". Along with Seurat the Coal Mine Drawings have influenced his later work).
MOORE Henry. Section four: Black and white graphics.
(Short note on the connection between the Stonehenge Elephant Skull and Auden illustrations).
MOORE Henry. Section five: The book.
(Explains briefly his approach to the illustration of the poems via his Stonehenge series. "I decided not so much to illustrate as to complement or even contrast").
Section six: Auden memorabilia.
(This part of the exhibition included notebooks photographs together with Moore's drawings for the masks in the first Group Theatre production of The Dance of Death)."