Henry Moore and Lucien den Arend in front of Moore's house in Forte Dei Marmi, Italy
"After my first meeting with Henry Moore
and his wife Irina on a Sunday morning august 23, 1970 on a terrace in Forte Dei Marmi I
saw him again at his house in 198 Via Civitali of the same town. This was on Friday
evening August 20, 1971. Later that evening I made the following account of this meeting:
Irina Moore let me in. She said, Henry Moore
is on the phone. It struck me that she didn't refer to him as 'my husband'. She invited me
to sit in the living room while he was talking about some sale with his secretary in
England. He commented "it's pouring in London". I remarked about a
beautiful vase I had seen at Henraux in Querceta. (The firm Henraux owns the Altissimo,
the mountain where Michelangelo obtained his marble. They deal in mainly marble all over
the world.) "They gave this vase to Mary." said Irina. Mary is their daughter.
Moore joins us after having finished his call. "I have an unexpected guest in back
and ... let's see, how long will you be staying in Forte Dei Marmi?" Next Sunday or
Monday I would return I said. "Lets see how long it takes. My wife will keep you
center and get you a drink." She remarked that this had been the warmest summer they
ever had in Forte Dei Marmi. I joined her in the kitchen and decided to have a soda. She
added a slice of lemon. "How's your work coming along?" she asked. "I'm
quite busy." "Good." She proposed to go to the living room and started
about someone (I didn't catch who - maybe it was Mary) at the Edinburgh Festival. I asked
her how long they'd been in Italy already. Three weeks. Feeling a little uneasy about the
visitor in the back of the house, I asked whether I was keeping her from their guest.
"No but come, let's go into the garden; we'll sit there. "How's your wife?"
she asked. I told her that I was not married and that I wasn't seeing the person, who
accompanied me the year before, any more. "Well, maybe it's better to be a little
older before you marry; you will have grown more independent then ........... and, maybe
it's good to marry young and grow accustomed to each other; I don't know really." I
told her that I didn't think it was necessary that one's (an artist's) partner should know
a lot about art. She'd learn along the way. I surmised that an artist's wife
would maybe be more likely to be neglected. A factory worker leaves his work at the
end of a day comes home to his wife (How simple things seemed to me then). In the meantime
we had sat down at a large round marble table in the garden. Henry Moore was conferring at
the second table with his visitor, an Italian publisher. Irina, disagreeing with what I
had just said: "No, an artist mostly works at home and a factory worker's wife spends
all day alone at home doing things she doesn't like. then her husband comes home and ...
You're from Holland aren't you? We've been there many times, Rotterdam, The Hague once,
Arnhem." I asked about a derelict corrugated iron shed in the back of the garden.
"It's the place where the painter friend of us" (Martini?) "used to work.
We bought the house from him; all it was, was this part." She points to a section of
the house. "We built the rest with all the accommodations. A friendly lady, further
down, comes when it's a nice day in the winter and opens the windows to air the
house."
The telephone rings. Irina and Henry Moore
both got up; "I'll get it." He calls to her; but she was already inside.
Barefooted, he re-joined his visitor. Somewhat later she returned, opening the door of the
old part of the house, "fresh air inside;" she said and continued,
"probably a wrong number." "Just hang up, hang up dear!" He seemed
tense and corrected himself, "Yes, probably a wrong number." He and San Lazarini
(I think that was the caller's name ) got up out of their chairs and joined us. Henry
Moore introduced him to me. He was a publisher. He reassured me that he was just waiting
for a taxi and told me they were working on an extensive book on the work of Henry
Moore.
After Henry Moore's returning from making the
phone call for a taxi I told him that I had been to Henraux earlier that day. The year
before Moore had recommended that I should contact Mr. Cidonio of Henraux to work in one
of their sculptors' studios. He had told me I could work there when I want to.
"That's good," said Henry Moore " I worked there for (twenty five?) years.
You have to work in stone first yourself before you can have it done for you. Then it's
alright." I asked "Did you actually carve the pebbles you found on the seashore,
like it says in the book?" In the book by John Hedgecoe and Henry Moore I had read
about this and wanted to know more about what he thought about working in this material.
"Where?" he asked. His wife answered "Yes, in Dorset." "O yes,
there would be good forms from which to start, and I would carve it to improve it. But
after three months they would get a kind of foam on them because of the salt inside."
"Like on cellar walls?" I asked. "Yes, and slowly they would disintegrate.
A few good ones which I had cast in bronze survived." The doorbell rang. The taxi had
arrived and the publisher said good bye to me. The Moore's accompanied him to the taxi. It
was 7:05 PM. I said I was sorry to interrupt their busy schedule. "No, It's alright;
Mr. San Lazarini had to wait a week before coming, to get a hotel. "I had overheard
that The Moore's, and San Lazarini were having dinner with Marino Marini at the Paris Inn
the next evening. This was most interesting for me, as a beginning young sculptor. Marino
Marini also worked in the area Forte Dei Marmi, it was Pietrasanta I think.
I told them I had been to Volterra a few days
ago. "It's nice there." said Henry Moore. "Were we there?" Irina
asked. "No, I went there with Mary and a boy friend of her; the road around it with
the beautiful view." I asked, "Did you see the large pebbles protruding from
the walls where the road was recently cut through the hills?" "Yes, aren't they
wonderful?" I continued, "It was there I went up the steps and came to a place
where they were excavating and took some pictures. I was also at the museum and saw the
sculpted Etruscan sarcophagus covers with the reclining couples. There were so many, they
could have easily given me one." Henry Moore smiled and asked whether I had been to
the Etruscan Museum at Florence. "You should go there." I told him that I had
seen Etruscan long Giacometti-like sculptures. "Yes, that's from where he got the
idea. He told me so himself." declared Henry Moore.
The telephone rang. "It's friends with
whom we are going to have dinner." It was 7:30 already. "Did you see the Carlo
Carra exhibition in town?" He continued. I said I did and that it was so good to
encounter after seeing all the artsy-craftsy stuff on the street art market. "People
buy it though and like it," Irina said, "and that's good isn't it?" I still
wonder how she meant that.
I had brought a little box from Holland with
some small sculptures that I had made. So I asked whether I could show him some of my
works. "Yes, it's alright." Henry Moore said, glancing at his watch. I shouldn't
have waited that long to pop the question I thought, but it was now or maybe never. I
hesitated, "Or do you have to go?". "No, no it's alright, show them."
He said That he liked them and that Discoid Form Juncture could be good in white
Marble. I asked "But how would it hold with the pipe on which it stands?"
"O yes, they (Henraux) are good at solving problems, and you could get it nearer to
the ground." When I unwrapped Discoid Form 3 he said "O yes, that one
would go very good also in marble. And the lead one (Beach Forms), "Yes, the
space between here would be hard if you wanted it in one piece." He remembered my
showing him sketches of Beach Forms the year before. He said "Yes, I did
casting in lead too, but it marks (scratches) easily." I showed Reclining Form 3
and remarked that I tried my hand at some reclining forms also. He said "That's also
very nice, they're all good for large ones." He tried different positions with the
reclining form and put it on it's side asserting "I like this even better. They are
all very centered." I told him that I like his work very much, but prefer to simplify
forms and make them as elementary as I can. He said "Yes."
His wife returned from the telephone and we
talked some more about working in different materials. He found that marble should have
some veins, otherwise it would look white like plaster; "not too many though,
otherwise it will become an objet d'art like the vase inside or like ash trays. "I
asked them whether they saw two particular sculptures at the art market and explained
their form and the obtrusive material. They did and agreed to that. "Too many
veins."
In the meantime I had wrapped and put my
sculptures back into the box and had gotten up from my chair. We went inside and Henry
Moore pointed to the vase, I had noticed when I came, and said "We got that from
Henraux.". It had a spheroid shape; and he twisted it making it spin. I stopped it as
it approached the edge of the table. "Yes," said Irina "Mary would be very
cross if it fell. Henry Moore turned it back to the center of the table. When we arrived
outside, I asked to make a photograph of them, "OK shall we go here, no lets see,
here it's alright." I repeated that I wanted both on the picture. "Not I"
said Irina, and ended up taking a picture of Henry Moore and me at the doorstep. She
handed the camera back to me and I made one more of Henry Moore alone. We said good bye
and I went back to my hotel.
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