Sonsbeek '49: European sculpture in the open air

International Sculpture Exhibition in the Open Air

5th International Sculpture Exhibition at Arrnhem - Sonsbeek '66

Sonsbeek '58: international sculpture exhibition in the open air

Lucy Carrington Wertheim (1883-1971) supported many public galleries and young artists, and bequeathed over 50 works to Towner Art Gallery. This exhibition will bring together paintings, drawings and sculptures from her disbanded collection for the first time in 50 years alongside works exhibited in the Wertheim Gallery, which she established in 1930. The exhibition includes Moore’s Head of a Girl which was shown at the Wertheim Gallery’s opening exhibition.

Photographer Bill Brandt (1904-1983) and Henry Moore (1898-1986) first met during the Second World War when they both created images of civilians sheltering from the Blitz in the London Underground. Widely disseminated through news media and exhibitions, their haunting depictions of this human crisis became defining images of the war. This major exhibition begins with these early works and traces the artists’ parallel and intersecting paths across the post-war years, revealing their interdisciplinary range and the sculptural dimensions of photography, drawing and collage.

The first exhibition to examine in parallel the works of Georgia O'Keeffe and Henry Moore and their contributions to the artistic development of the 20th century, centring on the attention to natural forms that underpinned both artists' creative processes.

At the Henry Moore Studios and Gardens in 2025 twenty-five of Moore’s sculptures, including two new loans, will be displayed in the landscape where the artist lived and worked for more than forty years. The works span themes Moore explored for the length of his career; the reclining figure, mother and child and internal/external forms.

This exhibition takes as its starting point the artist’s early fascination with the Neolithic site of Stonehenge and continued exploration of the upright abstract form. Moore first encountered the prehistoric monument under the moonlight as a young man in 1921. He was inspired by the grandeur of the idea – a powerful and primal work of art set in the landscape.