by Arianna

About the Artist: Henry Moore

Henry Moore was born in Castleford, Yorkshire, in 1898. He was the seventh of the eight children in the Moore family. Moore grew up in Castleford and was educated at Temple Street Elementary School and at Castleford Secondary School. At school, his teachers were very supportive and they helped and encouraged his interest in art. When he left school, his father wanted him to train as a teacher like three of his siblings. In 1914, there was a shortage of teachers and an unprepared Moore was forced to teach a class despite his unwillingness to teach. In 1917, he was called up and joined the Civil Service Rifles. He enjoyed the army training much more than the classroom. After the war, Moore continued his education at Leeds School of Art and then got a scholarship to transfer to the Royal College of Art in London. He graduated from the RCA in 1924, and in 1925 he took up a traveling scholarship to Italy. On his return, he began teaching at the RCA. In 1929 he married Irina Radetzky, a Russian emigré and student at the RCA. He resigned from the RCA in 1932 and became head sculpture at the Chelsea College of Art. In 1955, he was made a Companion of Honour, and in 1963 he was awarded the Order of Merit. In 1977, the Henry Moore Foundation was established, and in 1982, the Henry Moore Centre for the Study of Sculpture was founded in Leeds. He died on August 31, 1986 at Perry Green, Much Hadham, and was buried there.

About the Artwork: Large Torso: Arch

The Arch was created in 1963 and is made of bronze. The artist, Henry Moore, probably used casting to create it. It was originally enlarged from a maquette that was only a few inches high to its current size. It is approximately six feet high and four feet wide, and because it is made of bronze, it must be fairly heavy. The Arch is one of Moore's most dramatic sculptures. Moore believed that sculpture should "have a sense of monumentality and energy without appearing merely big and heavy." The original inspiration for this sculpture came from a bone fragment. He said, "I would like to think my sculpture has a force, a strength, a life, a vitality from inside it, so that you have the sense that the form is pressing from inside trying to burst or trying to give strength from inside itself . . . this is, perhaps, what interested me most in bones as much as in flesh because the bone is the inner structure of all living form."