Henry Moore

Moore's earliest known work on paper exists in a friend's autograph book. The seventeen-year-old, already intent on a career as a sculptor despite his father's protestations, used pencil and watercolour to produce a copy after Turner's Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus. This he carefully signed and dated H.S. Moore 19/2/16. In ensuing years he was to be far less assiduous, leaving many drawings unsigned and undated, thus creating considerable problems for future cataloguers.The few drawings remaining from the years 1916 to 1919 are those preserved by friends or relatives to whom Moore had given them. In them Moore recorded his own ideas for future sculptures and drawings, and sketched rapid studies after Primitive sculptures in the British Museum collection. He continued this practice of keeping notebooks throughout his career.The 1920s were a crucial period in Moore's development. As a student at the Royal College of Art he not only absorbed the formal instruction given there but also paid for extra drawing classes in the evenings. In 1926 he was offered a seven-year contract as Tutor of Sculpture at the Royal College. In the same year he participated in group exhibitions in London and in January 1928 he had his first one-man show at the Warren Gallery, where established artists such as Epstein, Augustus John and Henry Lam bought some of his works.This volume includes a preface and an explanation of how to use the book, an introduction by the Editor, detailed catalogue entries of each work with a black-and-white illustration, plus 16 pages of colour plates.The catalogue of drawings completes the published recording of Moore's work and provides an essential reference tool for museums, galleries, collectors and students of twentieth-century art.