Although known as Britain’s most successful sculptor of the 20th century, it was Moore’s wartime drawings of Londoners taking shelter during the Blitz that originally brought him to public prominence. Printmaking was the perfect conduit for the sensitive and dextrous qualities of Moore’s draughtsmanship, and later in life, from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, he produced hundreds of etchings and lithographs.
Moore's sculptures, drawings and prints are so closely linked that it would be a challenge to identify a particular sculpture as the sole source of inspiration for a print. He referred constantly to albums of sketches and drawings that he had made throughout his life. Certain themes recur frequently, such as the mother and the child, the girl seated at a desk, the abstract architectural background, and the reclining figure. The range of Moore's subject matter was remarkably stable, and it's possible to trace links between works made decades apart. This stability masks the experimental quality of Moore's technique; as he became increasingly aware of the full possibilities of graphic expression, his prints were gradually transformed.
By the late 1970s Moore was working at the Curwen Studio, a lithography workshop that attracted some of the greatest British artists of the 20th century. It was run by the legendary Stanley Jones MBE (1933-2023), with whom Moore worked extensively. He embraced the Studio's organic approach to generating new and original effects. Trial proofs of each new image were pulled successively in different colours. They would be pinned around Moore's studio to be examined in different types of light throughout the day. Jones would also supply scrap sheets of paper from the workshop, upon which several images were printed on top of each other, including from time to time parts of lithographs by other artists working at Curwen. In this way new, previously unimagined possibilities for developing the image could be explored.
Moore also worked with a number of acclaimed etching workshops, including the Atelier Lacourière-Frélaut in Paris. In 1970, he installed a printing press in his own studio at Perry Green in Hertfordshire. One of Moore’s greatest contributions to the development of printmaking was his experimental approach to etching. True to his materials, he explored the full spectrum of textural possibilities in his intaglio prints, transposing the heft of carved stone and cast bronze into two dimensions.
Moore’s etchings and lithographs extended his exploration of the human form and the interplay between volume and void. He used printmaking not as a secondary practice but as a vital means of expression, allowing him to experiment with scale, line, and abstraction in ways not always possible in sculpture. They offer an accessible entry point to an artist whose sculptures frequently sell in the millions.
