Highlighting interesting items from our library and archive collections.
The subjects of our library display are wide-ranging, from nineteenth century sculptors’ sketchbooks to books produced by contemporary artists.
Small scale sculpture or works on paper from Leeds sculpture collection occasionally feature alongside text and archival material, illustrating the breadth and depth of the collections available to view at the Henry Moore Institute.
The Show Must Go On: Exhibiting Sculpture by Women in Twentieth-Century Britain
9 April – 25 September 2022
This display looks at the histories of exhibiting sculpture by women in Britain, focusing on galleries, societies and exhibitions that supported the display of women's sculptural practices.
Art and Letters: 'Little Magazines' in the Early Twentieth Century
22 Nov 2021 – 20 Mar 2022
Art and Letters explores the intersection of literature and the visual arts in magazine and journal culture during the first half of the twentieth century.
The Expanded Page: Sculptural Books from the Research Library Collection
7 June – 29 August 2021
The exhibition Portable Sculpture prompted the Library to unpack some of the boxed and folded items in its Special Collections. The book-objects on display explore how a fold can change a flat piece of paper into a free-standing sculptural form.
Henry Moore at Leeds School of Art: student notebooks from the Archive
13 October – 18 December 2020
We've linked up with Leeds Arts University to celebrate 100 years since Henry Moore started studying sculpture in Leeds. This display features Henry Moore's student notebooks and archive images from his time at art school.
David Nash in Poland: Documents from the Archive of Sculptors' Papers
24 February – 9 October 2020
In the summer of 1991, David Nash travelled to Poland to make sculpture for an exhibition at Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw. This display looks closely at the project, with photos of works in progress, pages from Nash's diary, and his sketchbook all presented together.
Ideal Standard Forms: The Influence of Classicism on Modern and Contemporary Sculptors' Drawings
15 Nov 2019 – 16 Feb 2020
This display looks at sculptors who continue to turn to the objects, subjects and conceptual threads of classicism in their work, including Ian Hamilton Finlay, Keir Smith, Simon Starling, Gavin Turk, Rose Garrard and Eduardo Paolozzi.
Yorkshire Sculpture International: Sean Lynch
22 June - 29 September 2019
Exhibition in the Sculpture Research Library
Sean Lynch reveals unwritten stories and forgotten histories, and in this exhibition delves into the life and work of 'Flint Jack', a notorious nineteenth-century antiquarian, forger and vagabond.
First: A Magazine by Sculpture Students, 1960-1961
20 Sep 2018 – 3 Mar 2019
First was published in the early 1960s by students and lecturers on the Advanced Sculpture course at St Martin's School of Art, London.
Neil Gall: The Studio: Cover Versions
21 February - 2 September 2018
Reception and Research Library
This display presents about seventy of Neil Gall's collage works in which he cuts into copies of The Studio magazine, plays around with their images and typographies and adds to them with his own over-drawings to create these 'cover versions'.
Richard Cockle Lucas: The 'Book Monument' and the Art of Self-Memory
14 Nov 2017 – 11 Feb 2018
This display looks at Richard Cockle Lucas' (1800-83) 'book monument', a series of fifty albums and scrapbooks made over the last three decades of the artist's life and comprising etchings, sketches, nature prints, writings and photography.
Sculpture in the Time of Cholera: William Calder Marshall in Rome 1836-8
28 July – 24 September 2017
This display explores William Calder Marshall's time in Rome during the early nineteenth century, an eighteenth-month stay in which he produced a number of sculptures despite the enduring threat of cholera hanging over the city.
Li Yuan-chia and the books of the LYC Museum and Art Gallery
19 May – 27 July 2017
Li Yuan-chia (1929-94) was a pioneer of abstract art in 1950s Taiwan, and is now considered one of the first Chinese conceptual artists.
Off the Shelf: Artists' Books in the Henry Moore Institute Research Library
3 March – 30 April 2017
Display celebrating books that deal with language and exploring the connections artists make between words and sculptural practice.
Modelling Manuals: 1890-1940
3 Nov 2016 – 3 Jan 2017
A selection of manuals on sculpture techniques, published between 1890 and 1940, written by leading sculptors of the period including Gilbert Bayes (1872-1953), Albert Toft (1862-1949), Edouard Lantéri (1848-1917), and Charles Sargeant Jagger (1885-1934).
John Bunting
25 July – 3 October 2016
This display looks at the themes of faith, suffering and love in the work of John Bunting (1927-2002).