Henry Moore
Henry Moore and I posing in front
of Moore's house in Forte dei Marmi, Italy
"After
my first meeting with Henry Moore and his wife Irina on Sunday
morning august 23, 1970 on a terrace in
Forte dei Marmi I saw him again at his house in 198 Via
Civitali of the same town. This was on Friday evening August
20, 1971. Later that evening I made the following account
of this meeting:
Irina Moore let me in. She said, Henry Moore is on the
phone. It struck me that she didn't refer to him as 'my
husband'. She invited me to sit in the living room while
he was talking about some sale with his secretary in England.
He commented "it's pouring in London". I remarked about
a beautiful vase I had seen at Henraux in Querceta. (The
firm Henraux owns the Altissimo, the mountain where Michelangelo
obtained his marble. They deal in mainly marble all over
the world.) "They gave this vase to Mary." said Irina. Mary
is their daughter. Moore joins us after having finished
his call. "I have an unexpected guest in back and ... let's
see, how long will you be staying in Forte dei Marmi?" Next
Sunday or Monday I would return I said. "Lets see how long
it takes. My wife will keep you company and get you a drink."
She remarked that this had been the warmest summer they
ever had in Forte dei Marmi. I joined her in the kitchen
and decided to have a soda. She added a slice of lemon.
"How's your work coming along?" she asked. "I'm quite busy."
"Good." She proposed to go to the living room and started
about someone (I didn't catch who - maybe it was Mary) at
the Edinburgh Festival. I asked her how long they'd been
in Italy already. Three weeks. Feeling a little uneasy about
the visitor in the back of the house, I asked whether I
was keeping her from their guest. "No but come, let's go
into the garden; we'll sit there. "How's your wife?" she
asked. I told her that I was not married and that I wasn't
seeing the person, who accompanied me the year before, anymore. "Well, maybe it's better to be a little older before
you marry; you will have grown more independent then ...........
and, maybe it's good to marry young and grow accustomed
to each other; I don't know really." I told her that I didn't
think it was necessary that one's (an artist's) partner
should know a lot about art. She'd learn along the way.
I surmised that an artist's wife would maybe be more likely
to be neglected. A factory worker leaves his work at the
end of a day comes home to his wife (How simple things seemed
to me then). In the meantime we had sat down at a large
round marble table in the garden. Henry Moore was conferring
at the second table with his visitor, an Italian publisher.
Irina, disagreeing with what I had just said: "No, an artist
mostly works at home and a factory worker's wife spends
all day alone at home doing things she doesn't like. then
her husband comes home and ... You're from Holland aren't
you? We've been there many times, Rotterdam, The Hague once,
Arnhem." I asked about a derelict corrugated iron shed in
the back of the garden. "It's the place where the painter
friend of us" (Martini?) "used to work. We bought the house
from him; all it was, was this part." She points to a section
of the house. "We built the rest with all the accommodations.
A friendly lady, further down, comes when it's a nice day
in the winter and opens the windows to air the house."
The telephone rings. Irina and Henry Moore both got
up; "I'll get it." He calls to her; but she was already
inside. Barefooted, he re-joined his visitor. Somewhat later
she returned, opening the door of the old part of the house,
"fresh air inside;" she said and continued, "probably a
wrong number." "Just hang up, hang up dear!" He seemed tense
and corrected himself, "Yes, probably a wrong number." He
and San Lazarini (I think that was the caller's name) got
up out of their chairs and joined us. Henry Moore introduced
him to me. He was a publisher. He reassured me that he was
just waiting for a taxi and told me they were working on
an extensive book on the work of Henry Moore.
After Henry Moore's returning from making the phone
call for a taxi I told him that I had been to
Henraux earlier
that day. The year before Moore had recommended that I should
contact Mr. Cidonio of Henraux to
work in one of their sculptors'
studios. He had told me I could work there when I want to
and wrote down Cidonio's name for me.
"That's good," said Henry Moore " I worked there for (twenty
five?) years. You have to work in stone first yourself before
you can have it done for you. Then it's alright."
That morning I'd seen a large polystyrene sculpture in the back of
the studio's at Henraux and wondered if Henry Moore knew about that.
It could have been his work but I wasn't sure because I actually did
not like it very much. So I told him I'd seen a large white model
there - assembled from polystyrene blocks. Yes, "that's quite a
story" he told me: in England he had made the model from blocks so
that it could be easily taken apart and shipped. Henraux would
assemble them and make the sculpture in white marble. But when he
came to see the progress they were making, it seemed that there had
been a grave misunderstanding. The people at Henraux had concluded
that Henry Moore wanted the marble sculpture to be constructed from
blocks, exactly like the model was assembled. It should have been
made from one large block of white marble. Remembering his drawings
for sculpture where he had drawn contour lines like the sculptures
had been assembled from blocks; or the lines engraved in the molds
of the Festival Reclining Figure
which strengthened the forms, I thought that this was a way
to accentuate the shapes of this
Square Form with Cut. But in this case he made an
agreement with Henraux that they would keep the sculpture and for
instance sell it, and make another, correcting the mix-up; otherwise
it would be a financial set back for the company. But years later I found
this text by Henry Moore:
Square Form with Cut went from my studio at Much
Hadham to Forte dei Marmi, where I spend the summers. I made
the model in polystyrene, and I began the marble version at
the Henraux marble works in Querceta. I made it first in
polystyrene because you can’t find a piece of sound marble
that size. I decided to make it like a building. Nobody
expects to make a building in one piece, and in the same way
you can make sculptures in pieces. All the pieces had to be
numbered so that you could put them up – like number 1 and
1-A for the first layer and so on. We made the marble pieces
just like the model. You see, in a piece this size, it’s
like building a cathedral.
quote: Henry Moore - Intellectual Digest, August 1972, p.41
I suppose that there had been further developments, as
time can help one to adjust his viewpoints.
I asked
"Did you actually carve the pebbles you found on the seashore,
like it says in the book?" In the book by John Hedgecoe
and Henry Moore I had read about this and wanted to know
more about what he thought about working in this material.
"Where?" he asked. His wife answered "Yes, in Dorset." "O
yes, there would be good forms from which to start, and
I would carve it to improve it. But after three months they
would get a kind of foam on them because of the salt inside."
"Like on cellar walls?" I asked. "Yes, and slowly they would
disintegrate. A few good ones which I had cast in bronze
survived." The doorbell rang. The taxi had arrived and the
publisher said good bye to me. The Moore's accompanied him
to the taxi. It was 7:05 PM. I said I was sorry to interrupt
their busy schedule. "No, It's alright; Mr. San Lazarini
had to wait a week before coming, to get a hotel. "I had
overheard that The Moore's, and San Lazarini were having
dinner with Marino Marini at the Paris Inn the next evening.
This was most interesting for me, as a beginning young sculptor.
Marino Marini also worked in the area Forte dei Marmi, it
was Pietrasanta I think.
I told them I had been to Volterra a few days ago. "It's
nice there." said Henry Moore. "Were we there?" Irina asked.
"No, I went there with Mary and a boy friend of her; the
road around it with the beautiful view." I asked, "Did you
see the large pebbles protruding from the walls where the
road was recently cut through the hills?" "Yes, aren't they
wonderful?" I continued, "It was there I went up the steps
and came to a place where they were excavating and took
some pictures. I was also at the museum and saw the sculpted
Etruscan sarcophagus covers with the reclining couples.
There were so many, they could have easily given me one."
Henry Moore smiled and asked whether I had been to the Etruscan
Museum at Florence. "You should go there." I told him that
I had seen Etruscan long Giacometti-like sculptures. "Yes,
that's from where he got the idea. He told me so himself."
declared Henry Moore.
I told him that I've wanted to own one of his works but
that didn't seem likely to happen soon. He told about the
prices his works were fetching at auctions and that he felt
obliged not to go below those. He did not want to disturb
the market for his work. I asked him whether he would like
to trade something with me sometime; "yes" he answered, "you
must come to England and visit us."
The telephone rang. "It's friends with whom we are going
to have dinner." It was 7:30 already. "Did you see the Carlo
Carra exhibition in town?" He continued. I said I did and
that it was so good to encounter after seeing all the artsy-craftsy
stuff on the street art market. "People buy it though and
like it," Irina said, "and that's good isn't it?" I still
wonder how she meant that.
terracotta
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lead
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plaster of Paris
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plaster of Paris
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copper
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I had brought a little box from Holland with some small
sculptures that I had made. So I asked whether I could show
him some of my works. "Yes, it's alright." Henry Moore said,
glancing at his watch. I shouldn't have waited that long
to pop the question I thought, but it was now or maybe never.
I hesitated, "Or do you have to go?". "No, no it's alright,
show them." He said That he liked them and that Discoid
Form Juncture could be good in white Marble. I asked "But
how would it hold with the pipe on which it stands?" "O
yes, they (Henraux) are good at solving problems, and you
could get it nearer to the ground." When I unwrapped Discoid
Form 3 he said "O yes, that one would go very good also
in marble. And the lead one (Beach Forms), "Yes, the space
between here would be hard if you wanted it in one piece."
He remembered my showing him sketches of Beach Forms the
year before. He said "Yes, I did casting in lead too, but
it marks (scratches) easily." I showed Reclining Form 3
and remarked that I tried my hand at some reclining forms
also. He said "That's also very nice, they're all good for
large ones." He tried different positions with the reclining
form and put it on it's side asserting "I like this even
better. They are all very centered." I told him that I like
his work very much, but prefer to simplify forms and make
them as elementary as I can. He said "Yes."
His wife returned from the telephone and we talked some
more about working in different materials. He found that
marble should have some veins, otherwise it would look white
like plaster; "not too many though, otherwise it will become
an objet d'art like the vase inside or like ash trays. "I
asked them whether they saw two particular sculptures at
the art market and explained their form and the obtrusive
material. They did and agreed to that. "Too many veins."
In the meantime I had wrapped and put my sculptures
back into the box and had gotten up from my chair. We went
inside and Henry Moore pointed to the vase, I had noticed
when I came, and said "We got that from Henraux.". It had
a spheroid shape; and he twisted it making it spin. I stopped
it as it approached the edge of the table. "Yes," said Irina
"Mary would be very cross if it fell. Henry Moore turned
it back to the center of the table. When we arrived outside,
I asked to make a photograph of them, "OK shall we go here,
no lets see, here it's alright." I repeated that I wanted
both on the picture. "Not I" said Irina, and ended up taking
a picture of Henry Moore and me at the doorstep. She handed
the camera back to me and I made one more of Henry Moore
alone. We said good bye and I went back to my hotel.
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