Henry Spencer Moore, a British artist and sculptor was the seventh of eight children of a mining engineer, born in the town of Castleford, Yorkshire on July 30, 1898. At the age of 18 Moore was called to service in the army at the height of World War I. After the war, Moore received an ex-serviceman's grant to continue his education and he became the first student of sculpture at Leeds School of Art.
Standard sculpture teaching of that period was of the Victorian style and subjects were natural forms. Moore felt uncomfortable with these ideas and introduced a particular form of modernism into the United Kingdom. He produced large scale abstract bronze and marble sculptures. His signature form is a pierced reclining figure.
In July of 1929 Moore married Irina Radetsky, a painting student at the Royal College of Art, where he had assumed a teaching post. In the early 1930s Moore flirted with Surrealism. This was a very inventive and productive period for him which was unfortunately brought to an end by the outbreak of the Second World War. Moore was commissioned as a war artist and the drawings he produced help boost his international reputation. In the 1950s he received increasingly significant commissions, including one for the UNESCO building in Paris.
In 1977 Moore created the Henry Moore Foundation to promote the public appreciation of art and to preserve his sculptures. He died on August 31, 1986, at the age of 88, at his home in Hertfordshire. His body is interred in the Artist's Corner at St. Paul's Cathedral.
In March of 2006, Moore's "Reclining Figure" was stolen from a London museum. The piece was valued at $5 million.
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