0:00:02 > 0:00:03BBC Four Collections -
0:00:03 > 0:00:06specially chosen programmes from the BBC Archive.
0:00:06 > 0:00:07For this Collection,
0:00:07 > 0:00:08Sir Michael Parkinson
0:00:08 > 0:00:10has selected BBC interviews
0:00:10 > 0:00:12with influential figures
0:00:12 > 0:00:13of the 20th century.
0:00:13 > 0:00:15More programmes on this theme
0:00:15 > 0:00:16and other BBC Four Collections
0:00:16 > 0:00:18are available on BBC iPlayer.
0:00:20 > 0:00:24MUSIC: "Concerto Grosso No 1: II. Dirge" by Ernest Bloch
0:02:43 > 0:02:44HUW WHELDON: 'Henry Moore believes that sculpture
0:02:44 > 0:02:46'is an art of the open air and not an indoor art.
0:02:46 > 0:02:50'He's got two or three acres of grass and trees attached to his house,
0:02:50 > 0:02:52'to give him, in his own words,
0:02:52 > 0:02:55'"A piece of ground on which I can try out my sculptures,
0:02:55 > 0:02:57'"and see whether, from a distance, they tell
0:02:57 > 0:03:00'"whether the forms are big enough, and bold enough,
0:03:00 > 0:03:03'"and contrasting enough in their shapes."
0:03:03 > 0:03:06'He's also built two large studios in these grounds,
0:03:06 > 0:03:08'where the big sculptures are made.
0:03:09 > 0:03:11'The house and its grounds are in Hertfordshire.
0:03:11 > 0:03:14'And here he lives quietly with his wife and his daughter.
0:03:14 > 0:03:17'Moore himself doesn't buy works of art,
0:03:17 > 0:03:19'it's Mrs Moore who does the collecting
0:03:19 > 0:03:22'and the place is packed with pictures and sculpture -
0:03:22 > 0:03:24'paintings in every odd corner
0:03:24 > 0:03:27'and sculptures on every available surface.
0:03:27 > 0:03:30'A case in the hall holds a collection
0:03:30 > 0:03:32'of Aztec and early Mexican work.'
0:03:38 > 0:03:42I like very much, this one here. This, um...
0:03:42 > 0:03:44- Aztec piece. - Does it come out?
0:03:44 > 0:03:46Yes, we can get it out, I think.
0:03:46 > 0:03:48- I have to be very careful. - All right.
0:03:48 > 0:03:52It was in 50 pieces and it's been put...put together again.
0:03:52 > 0:03:53Um...
0:03:55 > 0:03:56..this is, um...
0:03:57 > 0:04:02..Mexican. What? I suppose around 1000 or a little after...
0:04:02 > 0:04:05and, um, Aztec.
0:04:05 > 0:04:07And what I find very interesting in it,
0:04:07 > 0:04:09apart from the fact that
0:04:09 > 0:04:13Mexican sculpture influenced me tremendously in the early stages,
0:04:13 > 0:04:17is that this is an example of early stone sculpture,
0:04:17 > 0:04:20which is really open and free.
0:04:20 > 0:04:23You see, these are the legs crossed.
0:04:24 > 0:04:29Er, here's the thigh of the leg. This is the arm.
0:04:29 > 0:04:31And this the body.
0:04:31 > 0:04:35But the whole thing giving you a space under and through,
0:04:35 > 0:04:39supporting, as it were, by space
0:04:39 > 0:04:43the huge weight of the head and... yet architecturally strong,
0:04:43 > 0:04:45and yet free and open.
0:04:45 > 0:04:50And that, for me, is a remarkable sculptural invention.
0:04:50 > 0:04:52I think you'd better put it back, before it shatters
0:04:52 > 0:04:54into another 50 fragments. It makes me nervous.
0:04:54 > 0:04:55And me.
0:04:58 > 0:05:01Tell me about, um, this one, over here on the left.
0:05:01 > 0:05:04Oh, this is Mexican as well.
0:05:04 > 0:05:06But a different culture from the other
0:05:06 > 0:05:08and I think a very fine piece.
0:05:08 > 0:05:11But, um, I'm staggered whenever I look at it, as now,
0:05:11 > 0:05:15at what kind of remarkable authority
0:05:15 > 0:05:17and presence that head has got.
0:05:17 > 0:05:24The head in particular is what moves me very, very strongly.
0:05:24 > 0:05:26I think it has such a...
0:05:26 > 0:05:33a presence with it and, um, kind of almost hypnotic power -
0:05:33 > 0:05:35a kind of priest-like quality.
0:05:35 > 0:05:37And perhaps, in the background,
0:05:37 > 0:05:40that may have had some connection with the, um,
0:05:40 > 0:05:43head of the king in the King and Queen group
0:05:43 > 0:05:45of mine that I made some five or six years ago.
0:05:45 > 0:05:47- Yes, that one over there. - Yes.
0:05:47 > 0:05:51One of the things that strikes me about this figure, for example,
0:05:51 > 0:05:54is that it's one of the very few male figures that you've ever made.
0:05:54 > 0:05:56Now, in the first place, is this right?
0:05:56 > 0:05:59Um, yes, I think I've done about three or four male figures
0:05:59 > 0:06:02out of the hundreds and hundreds that I've done -
0:06:02 > 0:06:03the sculptures.
0:06:03 > 0:06:06And, now you mention it, they practically are all women.
0:06:06 > 0:06:08In fact my subject is...
0:06:08 > 0:06:10er, the female figure...
0:06:10 > 0:06:11- Why? - ..the woman.
0:06:13 > 0:06:16I...I don't know. It's just that, um...
0:06:16 > 0:06:19that's...that's what I'm interested in. But why, I wouldn't...
0:06:19 > 0:06:22I don't know and I don't think I want to know.
0:06:22 > 0:06:25- Um... - Right. Now, why not?
0:06:26 > 0:06:30Well, perhaps, um, I can explain. Recently there was a book...
0:06:30 > 0:06:34published on my work by some Jungian psychologist -
0:06:34 > 0:06:36a very good writer named Neumann.
0:06:36 > 0:06:41Um, I think the title was The Archetypal World Of Henry Moore.
0:06:41 > 0:06:43- Yes. - And he sent me a copy,
0:06:43 > 0:06:46which, um, he asked me to read.
0:06:46 > 0:06:50But after the first chapter, I thought I'd better stop because...
0:06:50 > 0:06:53it explained too much about...
0:06:53 > 0:06:57um, what my motives were and what, um, er...
0:06:57 > 0:07:00and I thought it might stop me from ticking over
0:07:00 > 0:07:02if I went on and knew it all.
0:07:02 > 0:07:08So, I prefer, really, to, er, not talk about one's work too much.
0:07:09 > 0:07:11Not to try and explain it too much.
0:07:11 > 0:07:14One can say things that don't matter about it, yes.
0:07:14 > 0:07:20But to try and go into what its deep motives and reasons are,
0:07:20 > 0:07:23I think stops, um...
0:07:24 > 0:07:27..might stop one from wanting to go on.
0:07:29 > 0:07:31That is perhaps if I was psychoanalysed,
0:07:31 > 0:07:33I might stop being a sculptor.
0:07:33 > 0:07:35I don't know, but anyhow I don't want to stop being a sculptor.
0:07:35 > 0:07:38Are you suggesting that it's impossible to talk about art,
0:07:38 > 0:07:41and this programme we are concerned with, for example, is useless?
0:07:41 > 0:07:46No, not at all. What I'm... No, I find, um...
0:07:46 > 0:07:49I look in at this programme very often
0:07:49 > 0:07:51and, for instance,
0:07:51 > 0:07:55the one you did on Lawrence Durrell...
0:07:55 > 0:07:58I found that, after it, his books meant a bit more to me
0:07:58 > 0:08:00than they had done before,
0:08:00 > 0:08:04that it gave me a clue about him, that it made him, as a person,
0:08:04 > 0:08:06real and therefore his works more real.
0:08:06 > 0:08:09In that sense, I think it's very, um, valuable.
0:08:09 > 0:08:11And again, too,
0:08:11 > 0:08:14one can give a tiny clue perhaps...
0:08:14 > 0:08:19er, in talking about what you're trying to do,
0:08:19 > 0:08:23um, and therefore people don't look for something
0:08:23 > 0:08:25you're not trying to do.
0:08:25 > 0:08:29But all I mean is you can't explain, um,
0:08:29 > 0:08:35in a few words, what you've been trying to do for a whole lifetime.
0:08:35 > 0:08:38That... And again that you shouldn't try to use up words
0:08:38 > 0:08:43and get rid of a tension that should be used in your sculpture.
0:08:43 > 0:08:46'The place where these tensions are released into sculpture -
0:08:46 > 0:08:49'the powerhouse, as it were, for Moore's work -
0:08:49 > 0:08:51'is a small studio near the house
0:08:51 > 0:08:54'where he does his thinking and makes his experiments.
0:08:54 > 0:08:57'There are little trays there, full of bits and pieces.
0:08:57 > 0:08:59'And I asked him what they were for.'
0:08:59 > 0:09:03Well, they're odds and ends that I picked up on the seashore,
0:09:03 > 0:09:07or out in the garden, or in ploughed fields.
0:09:07 > 0:09:09And any shapes...
0:09:09 > 0:09:12To have collection of things like this around you
0:09:12 > 0:09:16means that, if I just walk in here in the morning,
0:09:16 > 0:09:20there's something that'll get me thinking or started off...
0:09:20 > 0:09:23about shape, about form, which is what, of course, sculpture is.
0:09:23 > 0:09:31In fact, any kind of shape which catches one's eye at any time, um,
0:09:31 > 0:09:34I pick up and just save or keep.
0:09:34 > 0:09:37And, um, you see,
0:09:37 > 0:09:42sculpture is purely this interest in form, in shape,
0:09:42 > 0:09:46not in literary ideas or that kind of thing.
0:09:46 > 0:09:49So that anything is grist for your mill. Any shape whatever.
0:09:49 > 0:09:51People.
0:09:51 > 0:09:52Trees.
0:09:52 > 0:09:53The clouds.
0:09:53 > 0:10:01Any shape whatever is, um, a possible starting or excitement for you.
0:10:02 > 0:10:06'There are experimental shapes all over the studio shelves.
0:10:06 > 0:10:10'Models and maquettes, some of which have remained what they now are,
0:10:10 > 0:10:12'some of which have been hammered and cut
0:10:12 > 0:10:16'and moulded into the big open-air pieces.
0:10:16 > 0:10:19'And there are scores of mother and child pieces.
0:10:20 > 0:10:24'Despite his earlier reluctance to talk about his main themes,
0:10:24 > 0:10:26'I persisted a little,
0:10:26 > 0:10:28'asking him why this mother and child subject
0:10:28 > 0:10:30'had always so occupied him.'
0:10:32 > 0:10:34Um, I wouldn't really know.
0:10:34 > 0:10:38I do know that it has been one of the two main themes.
0:10:38 > 0:10:42- That and reclining figure? - That and reclining figure.
0:10:42 > 0:10:45And perhaps it isn't as much now as it used to be.
0:10:45 > 0:10:50But at one time, almost anything I did turned into a mother and child.
0:10:50 > 0:10:52Um, why - I don't know.
0:10:52 > 0:10:55It's just a theme that, at one time, obsessed me.
0:10:56 > 0:10:58Um...
0:10:58 > 0:11:01- There must be some reason? - Yes, but I agree.
0:11:01 > 0:11:05- And what is it? - But I don't know it.
0:11:05 > 0:11:06I brought with me,
0:11:06 > 0:11:10this book with a photograph in it which I marked of your own...
0:11:10 > 0:11:13Madonna and Child, Northampton.
0:11:13 > 0:11:15Is it a Madonna and child, or a mother and child?
0:11:15 > 0:11:17Is there any difference between them?
0:11:17 > 0:11:20Well, there is a difference and I tried to make a difference.
0:11:20 > 0:11:23I felt very strongly that there should be...
0:11:23 > 0:11:26a difference between just an ordinary mother and child
0:11:26 > 0:11:27and the Madonna and child.
0:11:27 > 0:11:30But in this, I tried to give some sort of...
0:11:31 > 0:11:33..hieratic stillness.
0:11:33 > 0:11:38Some kind of, um, permanence about the whole pose.
0:11:38 > 0:11:43Some sort of, um, looking out onto the world.
0:11:43 > 0:11:46Um, but how much happened, I don't know.
0:11:47 > 0:11:49But you do this, don't you, with, um...
0:11:49 > 0:11:52even when you are making mothers and children
0:11:52 > 0:11:55that it has this hieratic, monumental quality in your work,
0:11:55 > 0:11:56isn't that right?
0:11:57 > 0:12:00Well, not as much, I don't think.
0:12:00 > 0:12:04I mean, sometimes I'm not concerned with that, you see, as I can be.
0:12:04 > 0:12:10Um, the opposite point of view about a mother and child, from this,
0:12:10 > 0:12:14which does connect with it, this is kind of, um...
0:12:14 > 0:12:19this warm, human, gentle relationship between the mother and child.
0:12:19 > 0:12:22But there is the opposite, in which the...
0:12:22 > 0:12:23Such as?
0:12:23 > 0:12:28Well, in which the child is really almost trying to devour its mother.
0:12:28 > 0:12:29- That kind of. - There?
0:12:29 > 0:12:30Yes.
0:12:30 > 0:12:37Um, that mother and child there, in which the child is rapacious
0:12:37 > 0:12:42and, um, almost, er, so hungry that it could eat its mother.
0:12:42 > 0:12:45The mother almost has to hold the child at arm's length
0:12:45 > 0:12:48like a grip...on its neck. But there you go.
0:12:48 > 0:12:56And that does happen too, in this relationship of the mother and child.
0:12:56 > 0:13:01Now, I know you've got these sculptures and oil paintings,
0:13:01 > 0:13:03and so on, all over the house.
0:13:03 > 0:13:05But I notice that here in the studio, there are no paintings at all,
0:13:05 > 0:13:07except for this one.
0:13:07 > 0:13:11Yes, well, that really is unique in my life.
0:13:11 > 0:13:17It's the only picture, um, I've ever really wanted to own.
0:13:17 > 0:13:19And it's the first one.
0:13:19 > 0:13:24Um, it's a Cezanne, Bathers composition
0:13:24 > 0:13:27and, er...
0:13:27 > 0:13:30when I saw it about a year ago,
0:13:30 > 0:13:34I didn't sleep for two or three nights trying to decide whether to...
0:13:35 > 0:13:36- To fork out... - Yes.
0:13:36 > 0:13:39..the enormous amount of cash necessary. Yes
0:13:39 > 0:13:43But, um, it has for me all the qualities of Cezanne -
0:13:43 > 0:13:47the really monumental qualities of Cezanne -
0:13:47 > 0:13:51and altogether gives me tremendous joy to have.
0:13:51 > 0:13:54It's not perfect, it is a sketch,
0:13:54 > 0:13:58er, but then I don't like absolute perfection.
0:13:58 > 0:14:01I believe that one should make
0:14:01 > 0:14:06a struggle towards something you can't do,
0:14:06 > 0:14:08rather than do the thing you can do easily.
0:14:08 > 0:14:11In fact that's what, about Cezanne,
0:14:11 > 0:14:15that is, his life was one monumental struggle
0:14:15 > 0:14:16and, um,
0:14:16 > 0:14:22aim to extend himself, and painting, and art generally.
0:14:22 > 0:14:27Again too, you see, it has my kind of figure in it.
0:14:28 > 0:14:30Each of those women,
0:14:30 > 0:14:34I could quite easily turn into a piece of sculpture, er,
0:14:34 > 0:14:36- straightaway. - Mm-hm
0:14:36 > 0:14:39They have this...mature...
0:14:40 > 0:14:44..middle-aged idea of women and not the young slip of a girl.
0:14:44 > 0:14:48- Would you say it's romantic? - Very romantic.
0:14:48 > 0:14:51Take the figure on the left, the one with the back like,
0:14:51 > 0:14:53almost like a gorilla - so wide.
0:14:53 > 0:14:56Um, and yet with, um,
0:14:56 > 0:15:02er...four lots of long tresses.
0:15:02 > 0:15:05A very romantic idea of women that he had.
0:15:05 > 0:15:09I ask that only because it seems to me that
0:15:09 > 0:15:13the word romantic is the last word one would apply to your work.
0:15:13 > 0:15:17Um, well, no, not at all. I think I have a very romantic idea of women.
0:15:20 > 0:15:23Of all the works that you're exhibiting at the moment,
0:15:23 > 0:15:26at this present exhibition, which are the most important to you?
0:15:26 > 0:15:32Well, I suppose, it's, um, what one hopes are the two last ones.
0:15:32 > 0:15:38The two large reclining... two-piece figures made in two pieces.
0:15:38 > 0:15:41Yes, we've seen one of them already.
0:15:42 > 0:15:45Um, probably because, um...
0:15:47 > 0:15:48they have...
0:15:48 > 0:15:52Well, I think I can explain it to you with, um, my photographs.
0:15:52 > 0:15:55I have some of them somewhere, I think.
0:15:55 > 0:15:57I take my own photographs.
0:15:58 > 0:16:00- Er... - What do you mean? Sorry.
0:16:00 > 0:16:04Well, photographers never take the view you want of them.
0:16:04 > 0:16:06You have to do it... Ah.
0:16:10 > 0:16:12Do you photograph all your sculptures?
0:16:12 > 0:16:14Um, practically all.
0:16:14 > 0:16:19Just to, um...be sure that it is the views that one wants. This is it.
0:16:20 > 0:16:22This is number one. There are two of them.
0:16:22 > 0:16:27And they more or less stand together but the, er, number one
0:16:27 > 0:16:31the two-piece one, is this. It's a reclining figure, as you can see,
0:16:31 > 0:16:34and connects up with all my reclining figures.
0:16:34 > 0:16:40Um, again, if I can show you, um... I can show you the...
0:16:41 > 0:16:44..first, one of the first reclining figures I did,
0:16:44 > 0:16:48you'll see that it has the same connection, the same idea in it.
0:16:53 > 0:16:54It's 1928.
0:17:01 > 0:17:03There. HE COUGHS
0:17:05 > 0:17:07- This one? - This one.
0:17:07 > 0:17:09You see the same looming leg.
0:17:09 > 0:17:14The upright body end.
0:17:14 > 0:17:17And in this case, I divided it into two,
0:17:17 > 0:17:19of which there is the, um...
0:17:21 > 0:17:23..head and body and the leg.
0:17:24 > 0:17:27- Is this a leg too? - Well, this is the...
0:17:27 > 0:17:31Yes, this is, um... the beginning of a leg.
0:17:31 > 0:17:33- It's a rudimentary leg? - A rudimentary leg.
0:17:33 > 0:17:35Now, these two figures are totally separate.
0:17:35 > 0:17:37- Did you make them separately? - Oh, yes.
0:17:37 > 0:17:38They're in, um...
0:17:38 > 0:17:40They're in two pieces. I think...
0:17:43 > 0:17:48..um, this one shows it. You see the, um, head end and the leg end.
0:17:49 > 0:17:52And probably what that results in,
0:17:52 > 0:17:56through making a sculpture out of two parts,
0:17:56 > 0:17:59is that one part gets in front of the other
0:17:59 > 0:18:01in a way you can't guess.
0:18:01 > 0:18:04And so it has, the sculpture has, I think,
0:18:04 > 0:18:07a greater variety in its aspects,
0:18:07 > 0:18:10in its views than probably any other sculpture that I've made.
0:18:11 > 0:18:13Um, for example...
0:18:15 > 0:18:18..there it is from, um...the leg end.
0:18:19 > 0:18:22Um, this sculpture was...
0:18:24 > 0:18:29..er, a mixture. It's a mixture of the human figure and landscape.
0:18:29 > 0:18:32And this one perhaps shows, um, what was in my mind -
0:18:32 > 0:18:34the connection with mountains.
0:18:34 > 0:18:38You see, you could imagine yourself walking along this...
0:18:39 > 0:18:41..here, climbing up, going up.
0:18:41 > 0:18:44- A little tiny figure. - A tiny figure with a...
0:18:44 > 0:18:46Um...
0:18:46 > 0:18:48Well, there it is.
0:18:48 > 0:18:51This and the other are sculptures in which, I hope,
0:18:51 > 0:18:55in which I've tried to amalgamate the figure
0:18:55 > 0:18:58and landscape and mountains.
0:18:58 > 0:19:00A kind of metaphor.
0:19:00 > 0:19:03Er, like...
0:19:03 > 0:19:05in poetry you'd say, "The mountain skipped like rams."
0:19:05 > 0:19:08Er, here, the figure
0:19:08 > 0:19:12which is connected with the earth, with rocks, mountains.
0:19:13 > 0:19:14It's a metaphor.
0:19:16 > 0:19:20MUSIC: "Concerto Grosso No 1: II. Dirge" by Ernest Bloch