Henry Moore's Sheep Sketchbook

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You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. His wider reputation was assured in 1948 when he won the International Sculpture Prize at the Venice Biennale and from then on came public commissions from all over the world. It is a go-to place for museum lovers whether they want to read up on an exhibition they are about to visit; read more about an exhibition being held far afield or revisit an old favourite show. These sheep sketches are wonderful- they are fluid and expressive, whilst capturing the very essence of the sheep.

A great resource for artists and art students and a thoroughly charming addition to your art library.

The time Moore spent watching sheep from his window gave him an insight into the nature and temperament of the sheep. Most encouraging for other artists is the way in which these sketches show a progression in drawing quality - even great artist improve with practise! Henry Moore (1898 – 1986) is known mainly for his sculptures, but he also made a few voluminous sketches. He began to draw them and, as he sketched, he explored what they were really like – the way they moved, the shape of their bodies under the fleece. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.

Moore lived in Much Hadham, a small village in East Hertfordshire, and worked in a studio overlooking a sheep field. One is solid and passive, resting firmly on the ground and strongly resistant - the other form, slightly larger and more active and powerful, but yet it leans on the lower form, needing it for support. Accurately reproducing the pages of Moore's 1972 sketchbook, this gem of a book gives a glimpse into the private inspirations of one of the giants of 20th-century British art.The maquette was enlarged to a 142 centimetres (56 in) plaster working model in 1971, [6] which was then cast in bronze in an edition of 7+1 (seven casts plus an artist's copy). They also developed strong human and biblical associations, and the sight of a ewe with her lamb evoked the mother-and-child theme – a large form sheltering a small one – which has been important to Henry Moore in all his work. He relied on varying the tone to capture light and shadow, form (the round solidity of a sheep) and shape (insinuating the shape of the nail’s body beneath the fleece).

He used a regular ball-point pen, allowing him the ease to glide over the paper when necessary but also to swirl violently and cut into it. Moore wrote: “Then I began to realize that underneath all that wool was a body, which moved in its own way, and that each sheep had its individual character. It was whilst working in this small room that Henry Moore first became aware of the sheep grazing outside.He drew the sheep again that summer after they were shorn, when he could see the shapes of the bodies which had been covered with wool. For anyone wanting to start a serious art collection within whatever budget this could be the best place to start.

They may have moved out of the position that provided Moore with this initial inspiration but the artist essentially links their textures to the landscape that they inhabit; the woolly cacophony of the animals being part of the momentary process of place. Perhaps Moore could see the process occurring when a sheep was augmenting its surroundings naturally and more quickly than he could with a sculptural work. Moore has been acknowledged as one of the greatest sculptors of the 20th century and as the most celebrated British artist of his time. A cast was loaned for the public exhibition in Battersea Park for Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee in 1977, and a cast was included in an exhibition organised by the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris, and displayed in the Tuileries the same year.Solid in form, sudden and vigorous in movement, Henry Moore's sheep are created through a network of swirling and zigzagging lines in the rapid and (in Moore's hands) sensitive medium of ballpoint pen. In the book Makers of Modern Culture, Patrick Conner describes the "power" of Sheep Piece as not only lying in the "physical confirmation of two massive structures but also in the psychological overtones of warmth and protectiveness that their relationship suggests".