In 1972 Henry Moore's sculpture studios in the English countryside at Much
Hadham were filled with preparations for his retrospective exhibition in
Florence. A small room overlooked a field of sheep, which he began to draw,
returning later in the year when they had been shorn.In February 1972 Henry Moore's sculpture studios in the English countryside
at Much Hadham were filled with the preparations for his retrospective
exhibition at Florence. In search of peace and quiet, he went into a smaller
room overlooking the fields where a local farmer grazed his sheep. The sheep
came very close to the window, attracting his attention, and he began to draw
them. Initially he saw them as nothing more than four-legged balls of wool, but
his vision changed as he explored what they were really like - the way they
moved, the shape of their bodies under the fleece. They also developed strong
human and biblical associations, and the sight of a ewe with her lamb evoked
the mother-and-child theme - a large form sheltering a small one - which has
been important to Henry Moore in all his work. He drew the sheep again that
summer after they were shorn, when he could see the shapes of the bodies which
had been covered by wool. Solid in form, sudden and vigorous in movement, Henry
Moore's sheep are created through a network of swirling and zigzagging lines in
the rapid and (in Moore's hands) sensitive medium of ballpoint pen.; The effect is both familiar and monumental; as Lord Clark comments, 'We
expect Henry Moore to give a certain nobility to everything he draws; but more
surprising is the way in which these drawings express a feeling of real
affection for their subject.'
