Exhibitions

This major exhibition, curated at Perry Green by former Head of Collections and Exhibitions David Mitchinson, explored for the first time the stories behind Moore’s graphic work in lavish detail, based on Mitchinson’s first-hand experience with the artist. 

Mitchinson, who worked alongside Moore on the production of his graphics from the late 1960s until the artist’s death in 1986, has staged the exhibition in the Sheep Field Barn gallery at the Henry Moore Foundation.

Print-making formed an increasingly important part of Moore’s work from the 1970s, when he worked with specialist printers and publishers internationally to meet a growing demand for his work. There are 719 prints in the Moore catalogue raisonné, and of these, 363 appear in some form of deluxe book or portfolio. These exquisite and highly collectable editions, the focus of this exhibition, form an important part of The Henry Moore Foundation’s collection of works on paper by the artist.

The etchings and lithographs in these deluxe books were conceived for a variety of reasons: to accompany the work of selected poets – W H Auden and Lawrence Durrell, for example – or to illustrate the work of writers, such as Shakespeare, or André Gide. Others were assembled as part of group tributes to artists including Picasso, Max Ernst and Mark Rothko.

In some cases, the books are dedicated to exploring subjects that had preoccupied the artist as a special interest, such as Elephant Skull, Sheep, Stonehenge, Animals in the Zoo, The Artist’s Hand, Mother and Child, and Trees.

The project is accompanied by an important book by Mitchinson, Henry Moore: Prints and Portfolios (Patrick Cramer, Geneva) charting the rich and varied histories of the deluxe books, prints and portfolios created by the artist in collaboration with other artists, writers, typographers, printers and publishers from 1931 onwards.

Also in the book are little-known one-off graphic projects by the artist – a wine label for the 1964 Mouton Rothschild vintage, for example, Moore’s personal book plate design, and a print conceived for a bold scheme to introduce modern art to schools. The book will also appear in a deluxe edition of 60, each containing an issue of Moore’s first etching, Composition for a Poem by Herbert Read (c.1946) and his last lithograph, Two Women Seated on Beach (1984).