a visit to Henry Moore

I went today to The Henry Moore Foundation, a trip originally scheduled for April for my father's birthday, that got postponed due to inclement weather.  It got back into the diary for today because my parents have a very old friend staying with them, and my mother was starting to panic about how to amuse him for an entire week, and thought that he might like the Henry Moore Foundation.

It is a charitable foundation based around Moore's own house, studios and land and it is very interesting.  You can tour the house, in small guided groups, advance booking necessary, and are allowed to wander at will around the rest of the site.  The house is a marvellous 1950s time capsule, since while the Moores lived there until their deaths in the 1980s they much preferred art collecting to interior decorating.  Almost every surface is stuffed with works by other artists (many famous), stones, bones, shells, and ethnic carvings.  A succession of local women were hired to dust and cook, the Moores not being domestically inclined.

The grounds are large, and contain a lot of Henry Moore sculptures, which show off to good advantage with plenty of space around them in the open air, instead of being stuffed cheek by jowl together in an art gallery.  There are some quite nice trees and herbaceous borders as well.

Some of the outbuildings are as used by Henry Moore for his work, and you can see his tools, and sculptures in various stages of completion.  Others are now used as exhibition spaces.  There are some wonderful textiles woven at West Dean College, based on his drawings, in a magnificent timber framed barn that he bought and had reassembled on site.

The staff are mostly friendly.  The pub, now owned by the foundation, is so-so.  If I were you I'd take a picnic, if it's nice weather.

I'm not sure it was my parents' friend's cup of tea, since he kept asking as walked around why the heads of the sculptures were so small, and didn't come over as a Henry Moore fan.  He is visiting from Australia, and I'd have thought a nice trip to see Flatford Mill might have pressed more buttons in terms of revisiting Old England one last time.  My dad doesn't have as much stamina as he used to, and ran out of steam half way round the studios, and I was knackered after an over-committed May.  I'd like to go back sometime, though.

Tomorrow we are going to Devon for our nephew's wedding, and I am not taking the laptop, since while the Systems Administrator is normally very patient about sitting quietly while I type, I don't think that's appropriate on a family weekend, and there won't really be time.  So you will have to hear the edited highlights when we get back, and until then Cardunculus will be on holiday.