Professional To Legend: Henry Moore with Richard Calvocoressi
Hello, sculpture vultures, hope all as well with you and that you’ve had a good week. It’s nearly the summer holidays, anyone with children is starting to get slightly nervous because they know they’ve got to juggle, work and kids. And that is always an extra challenge this time of year.
A little bit of sun would help the situation we’ve had a lot of rain in London, which is not helping the kind of work that we do, as the majority of our work is outdoors. But this week, actually, I have been very lucky because I’ve been beavering away inside the studio, which is a rare thing is my husband studio because he works on small objects, whereas I specialize in large objects that can’t be moved usually. And he’s been away. So I’ve taken over his studio. I’m sure he’ll be returning with a frown when he realizes the invasion that’s taken place. But I have been beavering away on the most fantastic little objects. They are Napoleonic eagles. And these are really fantastic Ron’s objects that are gilded, and they are owned by the Chelsea Hospital in London. They were presented to Napoleon’s regiments by the man himself, and carried on these long poles into battle. And the British during battles have actually captured several of these; I think it’s like the equivalent of our colours, you know, the colours are captured if you’re defeated in battle and taken by the other side. So what I’ve been doing is just giving these a little bit of TLC, some cleaning and care. And taking away some areas of disfiguration that have happened over time, these are not Apple wounds, we don’t remove that kind of history, even if it is disfiguring on objects these days, because it’s part of the history of the object. But we do soften the scars of time. So that marks which have come about just because of breakdowns in old coatings or environmental issues, don’t become distracting, and so that the objects can carry on being enjoyed in the way that they were intended to. Obviously, these were never intended to be artworks, but they are artworks and they’ve got such character sort of like Battle scarred, but really beautiful things and so proud and kind of, I just think that they’re full of character. They will be back on display at the Chelsea hospital soon and definitely worth a visit if you’re going over them in the Chelsea hospitals. It’s gorgeous and worth a visit anyway. It has tonnes of really interesting features in the building, but I definitely recommend Napoleon’s Eagles.
So today I have Richard Calvocoressi, CBE talking to me. And I’m going to try not to be a bit of a fan-girl because he is such a brilliant man. He is a scholar and art historian. He has served as a curator at the Tate London and then became Director of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, and then the Director of the Henry Moore Foundation. He then went on to the Gagosian in 2015, and has curated for them ever since, as well as writing catalogues and interviewing artists. We came across each other through work. I was involved in the Holburne Museums, exhibition of Rodin’s and Degas’, a couple of years ago, and we were connected at that point. I have been dying to interview him ever since. But as you know, I couldn’t do it. Over the last couple of years life has been too manic. But I have, you know, ensured that I have pursued him to do this interview because how can you not want to talk to someone who has done so many brilliant things? I could have actually talked to him about any number of sculptors because his experience is, well, it’s as broad as it is deep. But I wanted to focus on Henry Moore today who is an endlessly fascinating character to me, and I’m sure to anyone who is interested in sculpture. And so I began our conversation today by asking about the purpose of the Henry Moore Foundation?
Richard: Yes, well, it has three or four aims, objectives, really the first is to look after conserve, display a very large collection of Henry Moore’s own work that he gifted to the foundation at his home in Hertfordshire, at Perry green near much of him in Hartfordshire, where his studios, his own house, and the grounds where he ideally side sightings and sculpture, the gardens and parkland, are open to the public. So that’s really the first thing is to is to, is to preserve that is legacy. At the same time, with this very large collection of his sculpture. But not only his sculpture, his his prints and drawings too. The foundation helps with Henry Moore exhibitions all over the world. So whenever, you know, a reputable museum wants to put on any more exhibition, they will probably approach the foundation for loans. And in in a very few cases, the foundation might even give financial support. Like for example, there was a when I was Director of the Foundation in 2010, the Tate, Tate Britain did a big Henry Moore exhibition. And we help not only with loans, but also with funding for that, because we felt it was so important and very high profile and afterwards, it traveled to Toronto to the Art Gallery of Ontario, which is, incidentally, a museum where he made a very big donation before, before setting up the foundation, he made two big donations, one to the Tate of about 35. bronzes, I think, from different points in his career, and secondly to the Art Gallery of Ontario, in Toronto, which is a big collection of his plasters. And he went out there and advised on the display and the lighting and so on. So that’s so that’s really the first job or task of the foundation really, to keep more, you know, in the public eye both both at home and abroad.
Secondly, to run the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds in in in West Yorkshire, where, where he studied at art college before going to the Royal College of Art. And that the Institute was founded, in fact, after his death, but but there was a sort of prototype for it at Leeds City Art Gallery. It’s right next to the art gallery, in fact, was a bridge connecting the two. So it’s called the Henry Moore Institute for the Study of sculpture. And that’s really like an academic research institute. So through lectures, conferences, publications, residences, a very good archival library, but also an exhibition space. They look at sculpture, you know, in its broadest terms, so it’s it’s not really about Henry Moore, it’s about sculpture, although there’s nothing to stop the Institute from time to time putting on a Henry Moore exhibition or, you know, showing you how to be more in dialogue with other artists or whatever.
Lucy: That’s actually very Henry Moore, isn’t it, he loved to talk about sculpture, but he didn’t necessarily eulogize about his own what his own sculpture events, he was much more about a bigger dialogue about, just like to make up their own minds about things.
Richard: Very much so and in fact, he, in many ways, he was the first sort of media sculpture TV sculptor, but I mean, that I don’t mean not meant to sound in any way critical, but he, he, he used photography and then the moving image to promote his own work, but also to talk more generally about sculpture and there was some major amazing documentary films made by the BBC in the probably late 50s, early 60s, I think Hugh Weldon and others and then John Read, who was son of Herbert Read. Simon made a documentary on Henry Moore, it was called Monitor, I think he would, because you know, there’s one, quite some famous one where he picks up on objects from his own collection like pre- Columbian pieces, stick figures, as well as the kind of bones and stones that he picked up in the fields around his home at Perry green and, and used as the basis for so many sculptures. his legacy in his own collection is wide and widely disseminating it around the world.
Double oval By Henry Moore, Photograph Jynto (talk) https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7070833
Secondly, the Institute. And then the third objective is grants. It’s a big grant giving charity. Probably, I mean, certainly, for a long time, it was the the only artists, artists endowed foundation in the UK that gave grants regularly, I suppose it started. I mean, he set up the foundation in 1977. And he died in 1986. And, that’s when all his his investments and property went into the foundation to begin with it was it was just the artworks then, so from his death, the investments would have built up the capital would have built up and they started giving grants, I think, in the early 90s. But by the time I took over in 2007, we were giving away over 1.5 million pounds a year in grants, one and a half million, and that was to sculptural projects are of all kinds, I mean, exhibitions, collections, acquisitions, conservation, very important publications, university posts, or certainly postdoctoral PhDs and so on. So, you know, a wide range of recipients never, never to individual artists, sculptors, because I think the view was taken that if we advertise that we could just get flooded with applications. So it was the grants were always channelled through existing charitable institutions, be it art galleries, museums, art galleries, publishers, art colleges, universities, and so on.
Lucy: I was thinking about the exhibitions, because there have been so many exhibitions, and it was obviously quite something he really believed in about getting his art out there. And also understanding out there, he’s sort of, it’s a dizzying number, and I was amazed how he could still be creating quantity of sculpture that he was producing. I know he had assistants, but it wasn’t fast, and yet still handle the all of these exhibitions? I think there were quite many, even before the foundation was put together. So there must have been a stage where they were handling that in house as well. I mean, how did he do that?
Richard: I think a lot of the exhibitions abroad would have been organized by the British Council, the British Council played a big role in really promoting his work abroad. The British Council wasn’t really funded until the late 40s, I think. And so a lot of these, for example, he would maybe had a big show, at the tape, let’s say he had a big show at the Tate in 1951. His first big retrospective, I can’t remember off the top of my head, whether that was then toured abroad, but it would have been under the auspices of the British Council. So, he worked very closely with with officers of the British Council in London at the headquarters and then in the individual countries. So, a lot of those shows would have been British Council organized shows and he was seen, I mean, there was a political aspect to this because after the war, he was, you know, an after the care after the destruction and, you know, the devastation and the displacement and, you know, the suffering and Europe, you know, being at war internally with itself, European nations, he was seen as a kind of healing figure these, you know, these particular these figurative pieces, you know, the mother and child, the family group and so on were seen as sort of somehow recalling or getting back to humanist values that had somehow been been lost during that, you know, the catastrophe the conflicts where, you know, so many millions died.
So Moore was very much protected by the Western European nations, but also, even behind the Iron Curtain, I think, whenever it was possible, was seen as a kind of unifying force in society again, so, the British Council very much adopted him as their kind of, you know, their, main figurehead.
Lucy: Do you think that he was in the right place at the right time, which contributed to that success? Or was it that actually he was offering something that was really needed?
Richard: There was a desire for it in the not only in the British Council needing to maybe use the art but also in people. I’m not sure which one it was, the more I read about him more, I can’t decide. I think there’s probably a bit of both, I think, certainly, the last year, I mean, don’t forget, he had fought in the First World War. He’d been in the trenches he’d seen, you know, humanity at its worst, and at its best at the same time. He’d experienced the Blitz in London, where, of course, he drew London as sheltering in the London Underground from the bombing. Later in the 50s. He was chairman. Well, yes, he was chair of the jury to select an artist and it was an international competition to to select an artist to create a memorials are schvitz. And he went to Auschwitz, he spent a week nearly a week at the camp. I mean, not staying overnight at the camp staying nearby in a hotel with the other members of the jury. So, you know, he was very much aware of of, you know, that the appalling atrocities and suffering that have taken place throughout Europe and I think you’re and that’s certainly have an impact on his work. If you think about this broken forms, there’s, there’s punctured bodies, there’s very, that period of extremely emaciated figures.
Yeah, the fragmented, you know, that was definitely, I think, came out partly out of the trenches and partly out of World War Two, what he’d seen in during the war, and then, you know, obviously, after the war, the there was a lot of documentary photographs and films of the concentration camps, the death camps. So, you know, as with Sutherland, as with Francis Bacon, it had an impact on their work. So I think he, you know, he, he, he wasn’t a believer in the sense of being even a Christian or devout Christian or religious, but I think there was a definitely a religious depth aspect to his work. I mean, he did do a Madonna and child for St. Matthews church in Northampton, at the end of the war, when Graham Sutherland did a painting with crucifixion. And he found it difficult. But nevertheless, you know, he realized that, in a way Christian iconography could, just as Bacon did with his triptychs, his crucifixion in Christian iconography was able to say something sort of universal about, you know, human cruelty and suffering.
Lucy: So, when you came to the Foundation, did you know what you wanted to achieve? Or do you have to go into somewhere like that and then find your own way? Listen to all the voices, particularly Henry Moore, I imagine, in the background.
Richard: There were some very practical problems that that I discovered on arrival like simple things like storage, the storage for Scotch collection was woefully inadequate. It was being stored in you know, converted barns, old, old Hertfordshire barns. They’d been a theft, a big theft of a piece a few years before I took over.
So that my first priority was really to do a master plan for the whole site. And we did, we did that and the first building we constructed according to that plan was a brand new sculptures still was state of the art sculpture store in terms of security and climate control respite. And then the next phase was trying to get all the public side public facing facilities at Perry green onto one side of the main road, so the sculpture store was on on the other side of the main road and that was fine because you didn’t really want the public going into near the store. And then all the other things like cafe and shop and car park, we got over onto the side where the the houses and the grounds and the studios but did very discreetly hidden in the trees.
Reclining Woman Henry Moore 1962, Norwich. Photograph by https://flic.kr/p/9nNaRx
So we opened and right towards the end of my time, we opened a new kind of visitor centre there with with a shop and a cafe and access right onto the ground straight onto the grounds to to enjoy the sculpture in the in the kinds of natural setting that he that he favoured. And also, if you wanted to go around his house, you could you could book a tour. And then the last bit of the of that sort of more practical innovations was to build a proper archive and library because the wonderful archive that they have a very green you know, he never threw anything away. It’s a bit like Benjamin Britten’s archive, he was one of those people who kept everything Prescott’s cuttings and letters and etc, etc. Plus, you know, very good library. And that, so we created a built a new archive and library, and that’s I was there only a couple of two or three weeks ago, and was very pleased to see it being well used. And again, it’s discreetly, tucked away in the original archive, and library was in a resident in a converted residential house in the village, which was, you know, really, I mean, the conditions there were absolutely not right for people or photographs, negatives or photographs, and that kind of, so all that was done, and then the more kind of creative ambition was I felt that the foundation wasn’t international enough. Its grants could have gone to projects abroad more, I mean, they were doing certain amount of role but not enough, I felt, so that we changed that we we supported a number of, of different types of projects, that sort of things. I’ve already outlined what the grants went on it abroad internationally, both in Europe and you know, in the Americas, knighted states and so on.
And also, I felt it was very important that we should be supporting, you know, really major exhibitions of Henry Moore’s work around the world and, and not, not really, you know, fritter our time and resources and money away on on minor shows, but really concentrated, concentrated on the big ones. And then I suppose the last thing I felt was very important to do if we, if we, if we could, and that was really I only learnt that by being there was to encourage owners of his work round the world, in public sites to look after his work because I’m sure you will know that as soon as a bronze goes outdoors, particularly in an urban environment, you know, subject to all sorts all sorts of invasions of you know, atmosphere and pollution and etc, etc. The elements and if it’s not, you know, regularly cleaned and waxed, it disintegrates so it deteriorates and I we found a number of pieces like that, in different cities, I mean, the most. The two big Henry Moores in London that we helped conserve, were the arch and in Kensington Gardens, which was made of stone in which this this was an interesting case because it’s a more had a big show at the Serpentine Gallery in the late 70s. Just I think at the time he made set up the foundation or is the last show he said he was involved in before the foundation and I think The Serpentine showed the essentially the gift that was going to the tape for 35 bronzes, but also he erected in across the water from I don’t think it’s long water, I think it’s cool, but you could see it from the Serpentine Gallery. This very large arch made in Travertine, I think it is. And over the years, it’s it’s made its comes apart, it’s it’s in six or seven pieces, obviously because it’s you couldn’t carve anything on that scale that would would stand up or last very long. And it has been kind of fixed internally. By rods, it’s the parts. Now the, the what’s happened over the years was that the frost and rainwater had taken their toe and the rods internally were rusting. So the whole thing was unstable. The Royal Parks who owned it, or certainly who looked after all they, they may not have existed in that form when he gave it to them.
Serpentine Park whatever it was called. And they they accepted responsibility for it. It had been in storage, basically, it had been disassembled and was in storage for years. And we thanks to new kinds of debt, laser technology, and all sorts of new methods that weren’t available in the 70s managed to have it pinned together internally. And there was a lot of laser scanning that went on. And I think we paid for quite a lot of that before it was re erected, when it was let’s say 2010 or something like that. And then the other piece in London, which was a bronze was just opposite the Houses of Parliament on College Green, in Victoria Gardens, Knife Edge to Peace, which was a very, highly visible sculpture by Moore because whenever an MP was interviewed outside, on College Green, by the BBC or wherever it was, that you’d see it in the background. It was always the backdrop to numerous interviews with politicians.
Lucy: I could never listen to what the politicians were saying. Because I was always so distracted by the condition of the statue. Yes, I just couldn’t, I couldn’t hear what they were saying because I was so sort of drawn in the state of it.
Richard: It was not only scratched, you know, had corroded. The plinth was completely broken, too. But the interesting thing there and this this is a general problem, we couldn’t find the owner. It had been given happens so much.
Yeah, I mean, the ownershop had been given by Moore to the City of London through Jenny Lee, who was Minister for the Arts in the late 1960s. And the City of London. I mean, it wasn’t in the City of London, it was in Westminster. So it was a sort of even a miss kind of no one would claim responsibility for it. We tried everybody Royal Parks, Westminster. Houses of parliament they knew they would have to pay everyone would take responsibility and finally that the has the Houses of Parliament collection said okay, we’ll take it on. And say we will take because obviously they have a big collection inside them the House of Commons and the House of Lords but not so much outside. And in fact, I didn’t if they have well, they have the one or two statues right. Obviously there are some pieces outside the building. So they took it on we had to draw up a deed of gift with lawyers and they they agreed to look after it maintain it regularly and we paid I think for eight years, or certainly most of the maybe half or I can’t remember the percentage of the repair work, both to the sculpture itself, the repatination and the plinth. And I think a friend of mine was walked past that the other day and said it was still this is, you know, 10 or 15 years later, which is perhaps not anyway, certainly 10 years later, it’s still looking pretty good. There are examples of our helping with works in public sites in Florence. And also in Berlin, I think. So I felt that was, you know, it’s such an important thing that if a sculptors, you know, it works cited in public place in a in a prominent public site, they have to be looking their best. And it’s very often down to the artist or the foundation or the artists estate, to make sure that happens, because suddenly, you find that no one, no one is prepared to do it. And it hasn’t been done for years.
Lucy: That’s a lot of different aspects that you’re looking after, obviously, your position your role director, you are supposed to be responsible for many things, and have that big view of the whole collection. But I wondered if, if it’s your keeping the artists views in your head when you’re doing making those decisions, or whether it’s more like kind of power of attorney where you’re sort of making the right decisions for the collection and for the foundation rather than necessarily what more would have wanted himself?
Two Piece Reclining Figure No 3, University of East Anglia Campus
Richard: So very good question that because, I mean, I don’t know if you know that he stipulated in his will, that there should be no posthumous costs of his of his work, no further costs. I mean, with one exception, if there was an addition, that hadn’t yet been completed, let’s say five out of six had been cast, and there’s still one left or seven out of nine or something like that. He said that the addition could be completed under the supervision of his his bronze foundry in Berlin Noack whom he he used for, really the last, particularly for the largest work the large, very large pieces, probably used for the last 20 or 30 years of his career, under the supervision of Herman Novak, the owner who may trust you and Bernhard Meadows who was his assistant at the time. So there were a few pieces that what caused after his death under their supervision, because they, they knew exactly how he wanted them finished, patinated, polished, etc. But after that, nothing, so there were no further cause of anything effectively after 86 and 86, with one or two exceptions, as I’ve just outlined. And of course, this is in complete contrast on artists like Rodin, where the way that the only way the Rodin Museum in Paris can keep going is through selling casts, posthumous casts of his work. And they have numerous casts in store, which they can use.
And there is a limit in under French law about how many you can do I think it’s 12 or something but, but that’s the way the Rodin was, you know, perfectly happy about that, because I didn’t think he was so involved. As more was in the patination of his own work. But he employed patineurs, I think, they’re called in French. So it made it it made the job easier, in a sense. They were duplicates, of course, the foundation might have had duplicates of his work and the duplicate work. Whenever there was a big capital project, like the ones I’ve outlined at Perry Green, the store, for example, or the new archive and library. The foundation would sell a cost to to pay for the pay for that rather than breaking into the endowment, which was much more for the running costs. So, so we sort of knew what in terms of well, we’re out there, I mean, yes. So okay. So, a sculpture by Moore has disintegrated or deteriorated to the extent that it needs re patinated his assistants at Perry green, carried on working for the foundation after his death, and they would train up the subsequent generations. So there are there are People at the foundations there. Are there a staff, technical staff conservators, it’s been so on who would have absorbed all that knowledge and information from the, from the the early assistants who were, who was still, who would still who were employed by the Foundation carried on after Moore’s death. So there was a sort of line of succession that there’s a kind of, you know, knowledge there sort of family knowledge. So, I think, yeah, yeah, I think, you know, the, there’s a sort of tradition there. And many of the wonderful staff at the foundation had, even now there are still a few who, who, who had worked there for for more.
Lucy: So that’s rather a wonderful thing. And this is quite a big question, but I’m just fascinated by how you go from being a professional sculptor to being the legend that is, Henry Moore? Do you think it was the foundation that made the difference? Do you think that creation of that sort of overseeing body is something that has really taken him to a different level than most sculptors even dream of?
Richard: I’m sure that that’s part of it. But I mean, don’t forget that during his lifetime, by the 1970s, when he was coming up for 80, he was highly successful, he was the one of the highest tax payers in Britain, which was one reason, he was advised to set up a foundation, clearly, because otherwise, on his death, the collection would probably a lot of it would have to have been split up and so to pay tax. So, I mean, he didn’t, you know, we’re very used now to artists becoming millionaires or billionaires in the, you know, sort of 30s 40s 50s that wasn’t the case with more, I mean, he didn’t really start to to become financially successful, probably still in his 60s. Art, certainly after the Second World War, and he didn’t forget, he lived through two world wars, which had a big impact on production and all sorts of things. He lived incredibly simply, if you’ve ever visited the house that Perry Green, I mean, it’s like, it’s so different from what we know about the way artists successful artists, most of them will very often live now. He lived a very frugal life, actually.
But I think he had a vision for his own work. It’s absolutely true. He set up the foundation to look after his own things. And as you I’m sure, you know, he he preferred to see his his big pieces cited outdoors in landscape in rural or semi rural landscape settings, rather than in urban settings, or indoors. I’m not sure he was right about that, because I think some of those really large late pieces, bronzes that he made in sort of 70s 60s and 70s. We did an exhibition that of them goes in I don’t know when he was 10 or 15 years ago, indoors which is a very large warehouse type space, sort of place you might find in New York and they really looked extraordinary. I mean, they looked so much more contemporary, they had an industrial feel to them, I felt Moore was more of a contemporary artist with that exhibition in a way than seeing them outdoors, in parks and so on, you don’t because they tend to get you know, in these wide open spaces, they tend to they they lose their sense of monumentality, they lose the sense of scale.
And they tend to you’re distracted by the plants and the great greenery and so on trees. So that was one thing we started experimenting, showing his work in in settings that he might not initially have favoured. I think the foundation has done a huge amount to keep him in the public eye, keep him relevant. As the reputation fluctuates, it goes up and down according to all sorts of things to do with tastes and fashion. But I think, it’s the demand for exhibitions of his work around the world has dipped from time to time, but it constantly kind of reappears. I think that the foundation in the sense that it is the largest, and the earliest artists endowed foundation in the UK, probably if its kind has been a model for others. I mean, I know a number of younger artists and sculptors in Britain who are following that and set and setting up some kind of foundation.
And it’s also much admired abroad. I mean, one of the things I did when I was director in 2012, I think it was, was to go to a two day conference in New York, specifically about artists and died foundations and they asked me if I would give the keynote speech, because it was felt that the Henry Moore Foundation outside the United States was really the only foundation that was doing anything comparable to the foundations in America like Warhol, Rauschenberg, de Kooning, Pollock, Krasner, etc, etc, Motherwell all of which did different things. And I think that’s what impressed them most about the Moore Foundation was its educational remit, brief, it’s teaching arm, if you like, through the Institute in Leeds, and through the grants that we gave to educational universities, for post doctoral theses and so on, have to do with sculpture not not Not, not necessarily with me more.
Lucy: Richard, I so appreciate you talking to us today. I feel like I’ve really short-changed the listeners, because we could have spoken about any number of different sculptors or different artists. But I really appreciate it. And I know that you’re very much in demand, so won’t keep you any longer.
Richard: Well, the only thing I would end by saying is that I did meet Henry Moore, which which is very, really, really nice thing because when I joined the Tate in 1979, that my first job they gave me was to catalogue his gift of these 35 sculptures that I’ve mentioned. So once I’ve done a lot of research on it, I went up to see him at Perry green, this would have been in the winter 1979 I think December 1979 and spent an hour or two with him just going through all his all the works that it gives the tape showing photographs, taking notes, and he couldn’t have been more charming, more delightful. He seemed to have all the time in the world. So I’ve always felt I had a personal connection with him
Lucy: I feel so lucky to have got Richard on the podcast. He’s such a busy man and a very sought after experts in the field of modern sculpture. And apart from you know, CB that reads like a wish list of all the great places you would have loved to have worked. He’s one of the humblest and nicest of men in in person that I think I’ve ever come across. I’m going to try and keep this section brief because mines like Richard, which are much greater than my own have said, All there is to say about the genius of Henry Moore and his work with the part I am always endlessly fascinated with is how sculptors make that leap from just starting to make something getting that feeling that they want to create to going above and beyond their wildest dreams. Perhaps in the case of Henry Moore, it’s it’s a perfect circle where his creativity drove the success. But then the success drove an even bigger creative dream. I mean, I could be wrong, but I doubt that even he could have dreamed as big as he’s become. More definitely had one key aspect to his success, and that was his focus on getting his work scene, he ensured that his works were on display as often as possible. And this is also in the early years of his career. But obviously, as soon as the British Council got involved, they could, they took it up to a whole other level.
I find the stories of the success of sculptors, one of the most uplifting tonics in life, when you think about how unlikely it actually is, I mean, firstly, the sculptor has to spin together ideas in their mind, which are then translated through their hands into three dimensional form, you then have to get those objects made into a permanent form, which is super, super expensive, then you have to get the art out into the world in multiple multiple times, not just once. And this isn’t just a light thing, like a book that you can pick up and take. These are heavy, awkward, expensive objects, which, even though they seem structurally solid, they’re actually incredibly delicate, because the patent on them can be affected so easily. And so you know, you have to wrap them and put them in boxes, and you have to be careful, because there’s too much humidity even in the box, it will be affected. But then remember that, in the case of someone like more, you have to start educating the public about what your what your forms are about. I mean, this applies to lots of sculptors who do very original work. But Moore’s work, for example, might have been understood or, or familiar to an educated few. But the majority of the public, many of them these works would have felt completely alien to the kind of classical art that they might have seen before. So you don’t only have to get them out there, you have to ensure that there is a kind of narrative that people begin to understand and become familiar with. And you know, these works, don’t just cost pennies to buy, they have an enormous amount of outlay. And so if you want to sell one of them, these works aren’t just going to be sold to Jo Bloggs, they’ve got to, you’ve got to find a really tiny elite market, to take them on and to actually pay your bills, when the odds of making a living at this game are absolutely tiny. And yet, as you’ve seen time and time again, on this show, it can be done. And perhaps in Moore’s case, the jump from being professional to a legend, you know, required the British Council to champion the work and foundation to continue on the work after, you know, he’d left the building. But if you’d never doubted that something you want to do can’t be done. Just look at successful sculptors, they can show you that the world, it just doesn’t make sense. If you added up all those different elements, you’d say no way never gonna happen. And yet it does, it can. And that’s exactly the kind of world that I want to live in.