Henry Moore (Castelford 1898-1986 Perry Green)

After studying at the Art College in Leeds and in London on a scholarship, Moore spent time in Paris before becoming a sculpture teacher at the Royal College in London in 1925, a post he held for seven years. He became interested in Mexican, Egyptian and African sculpture, which he saw at the British Museum. In 1925 he obtained a scholarship from the Royal College that allowed him to visit Italy. From 1940 to 1943 he devoted himself almost exclusively to drawing. In 1941 he held his first retrospective at Temple Newsam in Leeds. In 1943 he was commissioned to sculpt a Madonna and Child for the Church of St. Matthew in Northampton, which was the first in an important series of sculptural groups. In 1946 the Museum of Modern Art in New York mounted his first major retrospective abroad. Two years later he won the International Sculpture Prize at the Venice Biennale. In the 1950s he executed several important public commissions, including Lying Figure for the UNESCO building in Paris.