Henry Moore Works in Public
This is a guide to Moore's sculptures on public display throughout the world. We strive to ensure that all information is accurate, however we recommend that you contact each venue before making a visit. Please also contact us if you spot any mistakes. In some instances it has not been possible to source an image of the actual sculpture in-situ, and on such occasions an alternative image has been used.
Stevenage
The Barclay School
bronze
height 152cm
photo: Michael Furze
The first cast of this family group was made for the Barclay Secondary School at Stevenage, under the scheme brought in by the Hertfordshire County Council for spending a fraction of one per cent of the building estimates on pictures and sculptures for its new schools. (The scheme unfortunately has since been dropped.) The architect wanted a free-standing group out of doors, and had a position ready for it in his plans. I went out to Stevenage while the school was under construction and tried out a rough life-size silhouette made in cardboard of the Family Group just for its scale. It was to be in front of a curved baffle-wall about 20ft. long by about 8ft. high, on the left of the main entrance, but the space between the baffle-wall and the drive way is limited, and the space between the sculpture and the baffle-wall is not great enough to tempt one to go round to the back of the sculpture. I realise that from the architect’s point of view the position he had decided upon was the proper one. For the baffle-wall played a part in the architecture – it masked an awkward junction of the building – and without the sculpture in front of it, it might have seemed unjustifiable. The fact remains that it is a position that does not allow the Family Group to be, in the full sense of the term, free-standing. We stood it as far away from the wall as possible, but one can only see it from limited number of views, one cannot get those sudden revelations that occur when one comes upon a sculpture from an unexpected angle. In such circumstances architects might consider the use of a turn-table, not to keep the statue slowly turning – that would be a horrible idea – but to present another view of it every month or so. And if the sculptor knows that his work is going to be seen all round, it is a further impetus to sculpt all round.
Henry Moore quoted in Sculpture in the Open Air: A Talk by Henry Moore on his Sculpture and its Placing in Open-Air Sites, edited by Robert Melville and recorded by the British Council 1955: typescript; copy in HMF library