Days Out – Visiting Henry Moore

In September 1940 Hitler’s Luftwaffe bombed London, damaging Henry Moore’s flat in Hampstead. This led directly to Moore and his Ukrainian wife, Irina, nee Radetsky, moving to rural Hertfordshire, to the village of Perry Green near Much Hadham. There they rented half of a farmhouse called Hoglands. It was not a move into the unknown. Moore and Irina had known the area, visiting friends in the neighbourhood for some time. In 1940 they thought of the move as temporary, but they would stay at Hoglands for the rest of their lives. As Moore’s reputation grew and spread it enabled the purchase of not just of the whole house but land adjacent to it.
Today the Henry Moore Foundation runs the Henry Moore Studios and Gardens where one also finds the Henry Moore Archive. Well worth a visit, it took us just over an hour and a half’s drive from South London on an almost perfect sunny day last autumn. Closed for the winter the gardens and studios reopen on 16th April and are well worth a visit.
Once you have got to Perry Green it is discrete, no large Moore sculpture declares the entrance. But once you arrive you are greeted by a newly built visitors centre that is simple, modernist, long and low, and in no way intrusively in competition with the other older village houses. The gardens and grounds cover 70 acres, and are more like a small park. In that ‘garden’ are situated 21 of Moore’s large bronzes, all carefully placed allowing them to be viewed in the round, 3600s from every angle against the garden’s greenery and on further against the landscape.
Time and finance also allowed Moore to multiply the number of studios he had. Each studio was used for a different aspect of his work. Early on there were only the Top Studio, and the Etching studio, both adjacent to Hoglands house. The Top Studio was once a stable that Moore converted, installing skylights in the roof and large doors. Initially this was his only studio. There he made maquettes, plasters and did direct calving. Next door, the Etching Studio, was once an ideas space where Moore would plan and try out possible works. He filled it with book shelves, tools, natural objects and half made maquettes. Later he relocated the maquettes to the Bourne Maquette Studio and the Etching Studio became the focus of his etching practice.
Further down the garden directly behind Hoglands is the Summer House, where he would draw in this small room that once could be rotated to catch the best light. Then , across the park-like garden with its monumental bronzes are a further series of purpose built studios. The Yellow Brick Studio was created as Moore’s creativity led to the making of larger and larger pieces and allowed him a workspace in which to do direct carving in stone and wood. This was also where photography was done and pieces stored.
The Plastic Studio was a more temporary structure. Moore liked to work out of doors, especially on his monumental sculptures, but the weather was not always co-operative. So with his builder, Frank Farnham, he created temporary spaces out of metal frameworks and large plastic sheeting that kept the weather at bay but allowed light to pour in over his sculptures. A relatively small Plastic Studio has been erected to demonstrate the idea of these previous temporary structures.
With the Bourne Maquette Studio you feel you have stepped into a magic place. Purpose built to house his maquettes, here one sees hundreds if not thousands of tiny pieces. Small ideas on their way to becoming monumental sculptures. There they sit cheek by jowl among objects that sparked their creation; flints from the surrounding countryside, casts of medieval or Romanesque Christs, bas-reliefs, bones, pre-Christian and pre-Columbian art, shells. Here is the heart of Moore’s creative process.
The Aisled Barn is a 16th century structure, a cathedral-like space that Moore acquired, relocating and reconstructing it in 1980. Today one sees a series of tapestries hung around its walls, created in collaboration with weavers at West Dean College, near Chichester. These tapestries translate Moore’s drawn and painted designs in watercolour washes, with their rough charcoal, felt-tip and graphite textures, into woven thread in extraordinarily accomplished ways.
Finally, and one should really say by primarily, there is Hoglands itself, the Moore family home. The building is now owned by the Henry Moore Foundation but its contents remain the property of the Moore family. Now a Grade II listed building, it has been sympathetically restored back to how it was in the 1960s at the height of Moore’s career by architects Kay Pilsbury Thomas. Low ceilinged with narrow passageways, the house has variously been described as originally medieval or 16th century. It is a rambling dwelling that the Moores added on to and filled with a cornucopia of objects, paintings and books they loved and drew inspiration from. Together with the varied selection of furniture and textiles Moore designed himself and Irina made into curtains and dresses. The books and sculptures cover or are from many cultures; prehistoric Cypress, Central and South America, a copy of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska’s ‘Bird Swallowing a Fish’ sitting on a table in the entrance, a medieval pitcher. They sit side by side with paintings by Courbet and Vuillard that hang on the walls. Crowded, yes, overcrowded even, although not to the same degree as the maquette studio. All tell of the fecund mind that collected and owned them.
A quite wonderful day out and a privilege to glimpse into the intimate environment of one of Britain’s internationally recognised sculptors.
The Henry Moore Studios and Gardens reopens on 16th April 2025 and are open Wednesdays to Sunday and Bank holidays, 11.00 – 17.00, entrance tickets are valid for the entire year.