The Life of Henry Moore First Edition 1987

Limited availability. First 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 1987. This is reflected in the price, no refunds or replacements will issued.

Henry Moore was widely considered to be the greatest sculptor of the twentieth century. His work had a profound impact throughout the world, as this book vividly shows. He was also a remarkable personality. For more than two years Roger Berthoud visited him every week to fill gaps in his life story and explore the voluminous archives of the Henry Moore Foundation. Shortly after Moore’s death in August 1986, at the age of eighty-eight, he completed the first full biography of the sculptor. He traces Moore’s progress from a miner’s house in Castleford, Yorkshire, where he was brought up, to the pinnacles of international fame and honour.

Moore excelled at art school and his talents were recognised at his first one-man show in London in 1928. His drawings of Londoners sheltering from the Blitz brought his work to the attention of a wider public in Britain. But it was in New York in 1946 that he had his first large-scale retrospective exhibition, at the Museum of Modern Art. His international reputation was assured when he won the main sculpture prize two years later at the Venice Biennale.

At home and abroad Moore’s sculptures aroused strong passions and were often the object of abuse, controversy and even physical assault, as well as of admiration. He was challenged by younger artists, among others, who saw his growing fame as an obstacle to their advancement. He was to survive the ebb and flow in his reputation, emerging triumphantly with the status of a contemporary old master.

From a mass of material including interviews with Moore’s friends, his former assistants and students, dealers, collectors, museum officials and leading architects with whom he worked, Roger Bertoud has built up a lively and engaging picture of Moore’s life and career and a sculptor. With its sharp observation, many insights and comprehensive coverage, this major biography will long remain a source of reference as well as of pleasure. It is illustrated with 190 photographs.