Outdoor works at Perry Green

On the grounds of their home in Perry Green, Hertfordshire, Henry and Irina Moore created the ideal environment in which to make and appreciate sculpture. A network of studios scattered across seventy acres facilitated a lifetime of creativity. The outdoor space enabled Moore to work on a monumental scale and to test the siting of his sculpture.

Irina transformed the land around their home into a series of outdoor galleries – open to the air, light, and subject to the shifting seasons. The Henry Moore Foundation continues to display an annually changing selection of sculpture in the grounds today.

Without that piece of ground I cannot imagine how I could have produced some of the large sculptures that I have done in the last ten years. If a large sculpture has to be made in a studio it would be impossible to get away from it, and I would tend to work on its surface rather than on its bigger architectural forms. In our garden I can place the sculptures and see what they look like from a distance and in all weather conditions.

Henry Moore in Henry Spencer Moore Nelson, London 1968 p.393