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Henry Moore Artwork Catalogue

British Art in the Nuclear Age

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British Art in the Nuclear Age
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Bib. Number0023066

British Art in the Nuclear Age

PublisherAshgate
Place PublishedFarnham
Year
Date & Collationxvii275pp.Illus.Select bibliography.Index
LanguageEnglish
More InformationBook concerning the role of art and visual culture in discourses surounding nuclear science and technology, atomic power and nuclear warfare in Cold War Britain. 3, 8 Moore mentioned in the introduction in lists of artists. 21 Moore referenced alongside Paul Nash and Graham Sutherland, as British artists that aligned themselves with enduring 'Englishness' of the poetic nude and landscape traditions, during the war. This tendency was named 'Neo-Romantic' in 1946 under the patronage of the British War Advisory scheme led by Kenneth Clark. 53 and 65 reference to Moore and Peter (Laszlo) Peri who both made work which overtly celebrated atomic science and opposed nuclear weaponry. 62 In 1950 Moore signed a letter to the The Times opposing the use of atomic weapons in Korea. 63 and 229 Moore produced sculpture in the 50s and 60s that was widely seen as a direct response to the prevailing climate of nuclear anxiety. John Berger proposed Moore's Falling Warrior 1956-57 bronze (LH 405) to beome an emblem for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). Reference to Atom Piece (working model for Nuclear Energy) 1964-65 bronze (LH 525), commissioned by the University of Chicago, was the best known British sculpture to confront the twin subjects of atomic science and nuclear warfare. 64 illus of Nuclear Energy 1964-66 bronze (LH 526). 66 Moore included in a list of artists in relation to the work of a younger generation of sculptors which Herbert Read's identified with the geometry of fear". Read's pacifism and abhorence of nuclear arms led him to support the National Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons Tests (NCANWT) alongside Barbara Hepworth and Moore. 5368 69 reference to Moore's Helmet Head sculptures of the 1950s-60s. 70 reference to Evidence of Anxiety an exhibition in Darmstadt in 1960 prompted by Read including the work of Moore Armitage Butler and Chadwick. 72 "After 1945 new forms of humanist sculpture expressed the anxieties created by deadly inventions of the nuclear technologists through a metamorphic metaphorical and dailectical language pioneered by Moore and given meaning my Read." 118 Thomas Whalen's Coal Cliff sculptural mural for the Hall of Power (Glasgow Festival of Britain 1951) is described as reminiscent of Jacob Epstein and Moore. 207 Moore mentioned in a list of artists in relation to Kenneth Clark's BBC documentary Civilisation. 204-205 Moore's Shelter Drawings such as Tube Shelter Perspective 1941 (HMF 1805) refered to in relation to Brownowski's Ascent of Man. Moore references to Moore in notes: 146 note 23 Moore won the International prize for Sculpture Venice 1948; 168 note 22 references Moore's petition to restore China's seat at the UN in February 1961."