Henry Moore: The Helmet Heads


Fascinating exhibition at the Wallace Collection showing the seven sculptures in Henry Moore’s Helmet Head series and looking at how they were inspired by his visits to the Wallace Collection.

This show was cleverly set out to take you through the inspiration for this work and preliminary ideas. It showed sketches of helmets by Moore in the Wallace collections own collection alongside the actual objects then showed you how he worked with the ideas these had inspired and how these developed into the
Helmet Heads. It really made you look differently at the real helmets and armour which I’d always found quite dry before.

It then looked at the evolution of the Helmet Heads including small marquettes for them and full sized plaster versions. I had never realised that the interior and exterior where cast separately and I loved the fact that there were five interior figures made which he matched with different exteriors in the first three heads. The three surviving models for these were here. They reminded me of Rodin’s series of dancers’ limbs which he put together in different formations to create a series of figures.

The show then ended with a complete set of the heads shown against a dark background and in a maze formation so you could walk round them and look at the detail. It also talked about other works by Moore developed from the helmets.

Closes on 23 June 2019

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