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Lot Essay
Conceived in 1950, Helmet Head No. 1 is among Henry Moore’s most dynamic sculptural explorations of the abstraction of the human figure, forming part of a series of works focusing on forms that are at once evocative of a head encased in the protective confines of a helmet, and suggestive of an otherworldly, mechanical form. The motif would prove to be one of Moore’s most creatively fertile subjects, one which sparked his artistic imagination repeatedly over the course of almost twenty-five years, and which allowed him to explore bold new themes in his work. As the title of this work implies, this sculpture resembles a helmet, its smooth outer casing echoing the domed shape of a military or submariner’s protective headgear. Within this hollow carapace, a single organic, abstracted form sits, shielded from the outside world by the protective barrier of the ‘helmet.’ These two forms remain independent of one another, their surfaces not touching at any point, creating a charged atmosphere in the space within. Helmet Head No. 1 stands as one of the most pivotal works the artist created on this theme, standing as the culmination of a number of ideas Moore had been developing in the 1930s, whilst also showing the beginnings of a new evolution in his style.
The theme of the helmet first emerged towards the end of the 1930s, at the same time as a powerful dark mood began to invade Moore’s work, driven by the artist’s despair regarding the increasingly disturbing political situation across Europe. As threats of war and conflict threatened to engulf the continent, Moore found himself engaging with a number of politically driven movements, first participating in the Artists Against Fascism exhibition in 1935, and then working on behalf of the International Peace Campaign the following year. A defining moment came with the outbreak of civil war in Spain in 1936, as Moore, who had visited the country with friends just a few years before, reacted with horror and sympathy to the plight of the Spanish civilians caught up in the conflict. These personal experiences spurred him to support the Republican cause, and in 1938 he created the drawing Spanish Prisoner which he intended to use for an editioned lithograph that could be sold to raise funds for soldiers who had been forced to flee across the border to France. Over the following two years, Moore continued to explore the idea of a helmet form encasing and enveloping an internal figure, creating numerous drawings and sketches that explored the possible variations. A striking example of this investigation is the enigmatic Drawing for Metal Sculpture: Two Heads (1939), in which two such helmet structures emerge from a dark, shadowy background, their contours blurred in a manner that simultaneously suggests a physical weight, and an apparent immateriality. In the helmet on the left hand side of the image, echoes of the Spanish Prisoner drawing can be detected in the three vertical bars which are just visible through the lower opening in the shell-like case surrounding them, while the horizontal cross-bar that stretches across the face of the helmet, dividing it in two, may be seen as a prelude to the structure of Helmet Head No. 1.
These graphic studies led to the development of The Helmet (1939-40), the first of Moore’s sculptures to combine separate internal and external forms and also one of the last three-dimensional works the artist created before the Second World War. Cast in a heavy dark lead, the internal element appears as an amorphous form, its body made up of a series of slender, flowing arches and ellipses that evoke a standing figure. Surrounding it is a punctured, domed shelter, consisting of a series of voids and solids that wrap protectively around the form, at once revealing it and concealing its shape from the viewer.
Discussing the inspiration behind the helmet theme, several commentators have pointed to classical and ancient artefacts as potential sources, with a particular image of two prehistoric Greek utensils that appeared in a 1934 issue of Cahiers d’Art repeatedly suggested as a direct reference. While Moore had recorded these implements in a series of drawings from 1937, he himself drew links between his fascination with this motif and his exposure to the collections of armour at both the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Wallace Collection in London, as well as with natural forms drawn from the marine world: ‘I think it may be the interest I had early on in armour, in places like the Victoria and Albert Museum where one used to wander round as a student in the lunch hours. And it may be that I remembered reading stories that impressed me and Wyndham Lewis talking about the shell of a lobster covering the soft flesh inside. This became an established idea with me – that of an outer protection to an inner form, and it may have something to do with the mother and child idea; that is where there is the relation of the big thing to the little thing, and the protection idea. The helmet is a kind of protection thing too, and it became a recording of things inside other things’ (H. Moore, quoted in M. Chase, ‘Moore on his methods,’ Christian Science Monitor, Boston, 24 March 1967, in A. Wilkinson (ed.), Henry Moore: Writings and Conversation, Berkeley, 2002, p. 214).
Helmet Head No. 1 was created at the beginning of the 1950s, at a time when the artist was becoming increasingly experimental with his forms, pushing the boundaries of his art to new levels of abstraction and psychological depth. This followed an intense period of work during the mid-to-late-1940s, during which time Moore had been commissioned to create a series of nurturing family groups and religious subjects for a number of public sites. This increased public visibility was compounded by the artist being chosen to represent Britain at the first post-war Venice Biennale in 1948, with the British Council presenting a mid-career retrospective of Moore’s work alongside the paintings of J.M.W. Turner. The British Pavilion in the Giardini was an unmitigated success, and Moore was awarded the festival’s International Sculpture Prize, an accolade that firmly cemented his position as the leading artist in post-war Britain. Emerging from this period of intense publicity with a new, heightened degree of fame, Moore began to revisit the ideas which had obsessed him during the final years before the outbreak of war, injecting them with a distinct sense of anxiety and fear, which seemed to be reflected in society at this time. The helmet was chief amongst these revisited subjects, and Moore began to experiment with the interplay between internal and external forms once again, casting Helmet Head No. 1, as the first of a new series exploring the theme. In this work, a smoother and more life-sized form is created, the visor completely removed to reveal a greater portion of the vulnerable ‘head’ inside. This interior element appears as a tapered, geometric point, reminiscent of an arrow head or spike, its top invisible due to the curve of the hood. This differs from Helmet Head No. 2 (sold in these Rooms, 23 November 2016, lot 2 for £269,000), which was fabricated concurrently with this inaugural piece from the series, and saw the return of a cross-bar cutting horizontally across the ‘face’ of the sculpture.
Both of these 1950 Helmet Heads were originally cast in lead by the artist, a material which Moore believed to be inherently sinister, thanks to its reputation as a hazardous metal. Poisonous if ingested or inhaled, lead imparted an extra dimension of menace to the helmets, adding to the disquieting quality of their forms. Subsequent editions were cast in bronze, which offered greater nuance of colour and finish to the completed sculpture. Moore cast five differently shaped maquettes for the interior forms in 1950, apparently independently of the outer shells, three of which still survive today. The artist recognised the manifold potential relationships between internal and external forms, and so most likely experimented with several pairings before the final version was created. The combinations in Helmet Head No. 1 is a perfect match, as the interaction of openings in the carapace and the individual details of the interiors results in a mysterious play of concealment and disclosure, creating the feeling that we are not quite getting the full impression of what lies inside and heightening the enigmatic nature of the interior form. As Moore explained, the helmet contained ‘the mystery of semi-obscurity, where one can only half distinguish something. In the helmet you do not quite know what is inside…’ (H. Moore, quoted in M. Chase, ‘Moore on his methods,’ Christian Science Monitor, Boston, 24 March 1967, in A. Wilkinson (ed.) Henry Moore: Writings and Conversations, Berkeley, 2002, p. 214).
Helmet Head No. 1 stands as a key marker within Moore’s oeuvre, acting as a Janus-like work that looks both to the past and to the future developments in his art. In this sculpture, the artist sought to consolidate a number of ideas he had been developing in the 1930s, pushing them further and exploring their potential three-dimensional forms, whilst simultaneously developing new and exciting concepts that would continue to provide artistic inspiration for years to come. Indeed, Moore continued to explore the subject of the helmet throughout the rest of the 1950s, developing increasingly complex forms which built on his original sculptures, such as in his series of Openwork Heads and Shoulders, and in his Helmet Head and Shoulders (1952). He also added two more versions of the Helmet Heads, Helmet Heads No. 3 and No. 4 to the series in the 1960s, making their forms markedly more enclosed than in the original two sculptures and adding more solid, massive internal pieces which almost fill the entire space. Moore’s fascination with the interaction of internal and external forms, which had sprung from his first studies on the subject of the helmet, quickly became one of his most absorbing themes, leading to some of the most dynamic and arresting sculptures in his entire oeuvre.
The theme of the helmet first emerged towards the end of the 1930s, at the same time as a powerful dark mood began to invade Moore’s work, driven by the artist’s despair regarding the increasingly disturbing political situation across Europe. As threats of war and conflict threatened to engulf the continent, Moore found himself engaging with a number of politically driven movements, first participating in the Artists Against Fascism exhibition in 1935, and then working on behalf of the International Peace Campaign the following year. A defining moment came with the outbreak of civil war in Spain in 1936, as Moore, who had visited the country with friends just a few years before, reacted with horror and sympathy to the plight of the Spanish civilians caught up in the conflict. These personal experiences spurred him to support the Republican cause, and in 1938 he created the drawing Spanish Prisoner which he intended to use for an editioned lithograph that could be sold to raise funds for soldiers who had been forced to flee across the border to France. Over the following two years, Moore continued to explore the idea of a helmet form encasing and enveloping an internal figure, creating numerous drawings and sketches that explored the possible variations. A striking example of this investigation is the enigmatic Drawing for Metal Sculpture: Two Heads (1939), in which two such helmet structures emerge from a dark, shadowy background, their contours blurred in a manner that simultaneously suggests a physical weight, and an apparent immateriality. In the helmet on the left hand side of the image, echoes of the Spanish Prisoner drawing can be detected in the three vertical bars which are just visible through the lower opening in the shell-like case surrounding them, while the horizontal cross-bar that stretches across the face of the helmet, dividing it in two, may be seen as a prelude to the structure of Helmet Head No. 1.
These graphic studies led to the development of The Helmet (1939-40), the first of Moore’s sculptures to combine separate internal and external forms and also one of the last three-dimensional works the artist created before the Second World War. Cast in a heavy dark lead, the internal element appears as an amorphous form, its body made up of a series of slender, flowing arches and ellipses that evoke a standing figure. Surrounding it is a punctured, domed shelter, consisting of a series of voids and solids that wrap protectively around the form, at once revealing it and concealing its shape from the viewer.
Discussing the inspiration behind the helmet theme, several commentators have pointed to classical and ancient artefacts as potential sources, with a particular image of two prehistoric Greek utensils that appeared in a 1934 issue of Cahiers d’Art repeatedly suggested as a direct reference. While Moore had recorded these implements in a series of drawings from 1937, he himself drew links between his fascination with this motif and his exposure to the collections of armour at both the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Wallace Collection in London, as well as with natural forms drawn from the marine world: ‘I think it may be the interest I had early on in armour, in places like the Victoria and Albert Museum where one used to wander round as a student in the lunch hours. And it may be that I remembered reading stories that impressed me and Wyndham Lewis talking about the shell of a lobster covering the soft flesh inside. This became an established idea with me – that of an outer protection to an inner form, and it may have something to do with the mother and child idea; that is where there is the relation of the big thing to the little thing, and the protection idea. The helmet is a kind of protection thing too, and it became a recording of things inside other things’ (H. Moore, quoted in M. Chase, ‘Moore on his methods,’ Christian Science Monitor, Boston, 24 March 1967, in A. Wilkinson (ed.), Henry Moore: Writings and Conversation, Berkeley, 2002, p. 214).
Helmet Head No. 1 was created at the beginning of the 1950s, at a time when the artist was becoming increasingly experimental with his forms, pushing the boundaries of his art to new levels of abstraction and psychological depth. This followed an intense period of work during the mid-to-late-1940s, during which time Moore had been commissioned to create a series of nurturing family groups and religious subjects for a number of public sites. This increased public visibility was compounded by the artist being chosen to represent Britain at the first post-war Venice Biennale in 1948, with the British Council presenting a mid-career retrospective of Moore’s work alongside the paintings of J.M.W. Turner. The British Pavilion in the Giardini was an unmitigated success, and Moore was awarded the festival’s International Sculpture Prize, an accolade that firmly cemented his position as the leading artist in post-war Britain. Emerging from this period of intense publicity with a new, heightened degree of fame, Moore began to revisit the ideas which had obsessed him during the final years before the outbreak of war, injecting them with a distinct sense of anxiety and fear, which seemed to be reflected in society at this time. The helmet was chief amongst these revisited subjects, and Moore began to experiment with the interplay between internal and external forms once again, casting Helmet Head No. 1, as the first of a new series exploring the theme. In this work, a smoother and more life-sized form is created, the visor completely removed to reveal a greater portion of the vulnerable ‘head’ inside. This interior element appears as a tapered, geometric point, reminiscent of an arrow head or spike, its top invisible due to the curve of the hood. This differs from Helmet Head No. 2 (sold in these Rooms, 23 November 2016, lot 2 for £269,000), which was fabricated concurrently with this inaugural piece from the series, and saw the return of a cross-bar cutting horizontally across the ‘face’ of the sculpture.
Both of these 1950 Helmet Heads were originally cast in lead by the artist, a material which Moore believed to be inherently sinister, thanks to its reputation as a hazardous metal. Poisonous if ingested or inhaled, lead imparted an extra dimension of menace to the helmets, adding to the disquieting quality of their forms. Subsequent editions were cast in bronze, which offered greater nuance of colour and finish to the completed sculpture. Moore cast five differently shaped maquettes for the interior forms in 1950, apparently independently of the outer shells, three of which still survive today. The artist recognised the manifold potential relationships between internal and external forms, and so most likely experimented with several pairings before the final version was created. The combinations in Helmet Head No. 1 is a perfect match, as the interaction of openings in the carapace and the individual details of the interiors results in a mysterious play of concealment and disclosure, creating the feeling that we are not quite getting the full impression of what lies inside and heightening the enigmatic nature of the interior form. As Moore explained, the helmet contained ‘the mystery of semi-obscurity, where one can only half distinguish something. In the helmet you do not quite know what is inside…’ (H. Moore, quoted in M. Chase, ‘Moore on his methods,’ Christian Science Monitor, Boston, 24 March 1967, in A. Wilkinson (ed.) Henry Moore: Writings and Conversations, Berkeley, 2002, p. 214).
Helmet Head No. 1 stands as a key marker within Moore’s oeuvre, acting as a Janus-like work that looks both to the past and to the future developments in his art. In this sculpture, the artist sought to consolidate a number of ideas he had been developing in the 1930s, pushing them further and exploring their potential three-dimensional forms, whilst simultaneously developing new and exciting concepts that would continue to provide artistic inspiration for years to come. Indeed, Moore continued to explore the subject of the helmet throughout the rest of the 1950s, developing increasingly complex forms which built on his original sculptures, such as in his series of Openwork Heads and Shoulders, and in his Helmet Head and Shoulders (1952). He also added two more versions of the Helmet Heads, Helmet Heads No. 3 and No. 4 to the series in the 1960s, making their forms markedly more enclosed than in the original two sculptures and adding more solid, massive internal pieces which almost fill the entire space. Moore’s fascination with the interaction of internal and external forms, which had sprung from his first studies on the subject of the helmet, quickly became one of his most absorbing themes, leading to some of the most dynamic and arresting sculptures in his entire oeuvre.