Henry Moore: Complete Sculpture Volume 5 1974-80

Limited availability. Second Edition hardcover.

Please note there is some discolouration to the pages and there is some warping in the dust jackets because these copies have been stored since 1994. This is reflected in the price, no refunds or replacements will issued.

The fifth volume of the complete catalogue of Henry Moore’s sculpture was first published in 1983. This new edition includes ten works from the period 1974–80 that were cast after the first edition was published and originally catalogued in an addendum to Volume 6. Every sculpture is illustrated alongside its catalogue entry, and all major works are shown in the plate section. From late 1973 to early 1980, Moore produced 153 sculptures: a remarkable achievement for an artist who celebrated his eightieth birthday in 1978. The most obvious characteristic of the work of this period is a certain sense of consolidation: the drawing together of the threads of a long and varied career. The invention is as marked as ever, but it often operates within the most fundamental motif of Moore’s entire work, that of the reclining female figure.

Certain works stand out. The bronze Mirror Knife Edge of 1977 goes back in concept to the Knife Edge Two Piece of 1962, which Moore enlarged in 1962–5 to a more than human scale, and in 1977 doubled again in size for its position outside the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.

The other large-scale bronze of these years is Three Piece Reclining Figure: Draped of 1975 – a formidable achievement in every way. The scale is three times life size; each part is a sculpture in itself. Equally dramatic is the Reclining Mother and Child which Moore was making at the same time. Between 1975 and 1980 Moore made more than a dozen reclining figures, which represent the high point of his achievement in these years. The Reclining Mother and Child and Three Piece Reclining Figure: Draped were immediately followed by sculptures in both marble and bronze which on every occasion restate the theme in radically new terms.

The years 1977-80 saw two great exhibitions, in Paris in 1977 and at the Serpentine Gallery, London, in 1978, and major publications of etchings and lithographs. There was also a significant exhibition of drawings in New York in 1979 which showed a progressive enrichment of Moore's visual world encompassing a new and deeper understanding of pure landscape.  It is this understanding of nature which underlies all his work: a steadfast vision of man's place in the world which explains Moore's unique position among twentieth-century artists.