The Shape of Anxiety: Henry Moore in the 1930s

EXHIBITION OVERVIEW

Many of us may be familiar with Moore’s large plasters from the 1950s and 60s on view in the Henry Moore Sculpture Centre. They’ve been on display there since the 1970s — reclining female figures, nourishing, life-fulfilling.

The AGO’s new exhibition from London’s Tate Britain shows a whole other side to Moore’s work - anxious, sinister, deformed, nightmarish, surreal. Moore’s sculptures from the 1930s are full of the anxieties of his age — his own horrific experiences in World War I and disturbing new discoveries about sexuality and the unconscious.