Henry Moore: Neo-Working-Classicist

With his Family Group of 1948–49, Henry Moore seemed to have reneged upon his early-career commitment to modernist experimentation, pivoting towards a more representational style for this large public sculpture, his first major bronze, sculpted for and installed in one of the first purpose-built secondary modern schools of post-war Britain. The results aren’t easy to define stylistically. Figurative, certainly, but barely concealing a stockpile of references ranging across centuries and continents. In this essay I will explore the implications of Moore’s stylistic shift with respect to both the contexts of the work’s conceptualisation and Moore’s personal investment in the opportunities presented to work publicly in that context. Moore’s working-class origins will be identified as foundational in the formation of an ideology given plastic purpose in this period, whilst the narratives of working-class experience at mid-century will be drawn upon to account for the ways this work relates to that period of social change. Taking Andrew Causey’s identification of an affinity between Moore’s work at this time and Picasso’s ‘neo-classical’ period in the years after the Great War as a starting point, I will explore the consequence of Moore’s ostensibly retrogressive turn towards figuration with respect to the questions of context and intent that have informed writings on Picasso before proposing alternative terms on which Moore’s figurative turn might be understood, tied up with the socio-political upheavals of mid-century Britain. Banner Photograph: Acervo Judith Lauand, 'A artista Judith Lauand (à esq.) e o escultor britânico Henry Moore (à dir.) durante workshop para monitores da 2ª Bienal de São Paulo ministrado em dezembro de 1953' ['Artist Judith Lauand (left) and British sculptor Henry Moore (right) during a workshop for monitors at the 2nd São Paulo Biennial held in December 1953']. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.