{"id":645890,"date":"2026-06-18T19:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T19:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/645890\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T19:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T19:46:11","slug":"outdoor-sculpture-shows-feature-henry-moore-lynn-chadwick-in-england-this-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/645890\/","title":{"rendered":"Outdoor Sculpture Shows Feature Henry Moore, Lynn Chadwick in England This Summer"},"content":{"rendered":"

That attraction to nature has inspired Britons to visit permanent sculpture venues for decades. Some of the best-loved include Yorkshire Sculpture Park<\/a>, where pieces by major international names are displayed in the rolling hills of northern England; the intimate Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden<\/a> in St. Ives in Cornwall; and Ian Hamilton Finlay\u2019s quirky Little Sparta<\/a> garden some 25 miles southwest of Edinburgh, which uses stone carving to explore historical and philosophical themes.<\/p>\n

In both those venues and newer ones, the distinctively English tradition of Picturesque landscape gardening \u2014 a more naturalistic gardening style that emerged as a sort of counterpoint to the formal geometry of gardens like Versailles \u2014 continues to shape how open-air sculpture is exhibited in Britain. For instance, Kew Gardens got a Picturesque makeover<\/a> in the 1760s. The resulting network of winding paths, humps, hollows, woods and vistas provides a suitably varied setting for \u201cMonumental Nature,\u201d which is among the largest outdoor presentations of Moore\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pieces aren\u2019t plonked in the landscape,\u201d said Paul Denton, Kew\u2019s director of creative programming and exhibitions, in an interview on the back of a golf cart-like buggy, touring the show.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very thoughtful process,\u201d Denton added. \u201cYou get a glimpse of one in the distance. You see relationships between works. You see pieces between trees or in large vistas. It helps visitors to see the gardens in a different way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The show also offers a fresh take on Moore. During his long, successful career, the artist dominated the 20th-century British sculpture scene. He became an establishment figure, his works featured in museum collections around the world (On its website, MoMA lists no fewer than 59 Moore sculptures and works on paper in its collection.) But in later years, Moore\u2019s pieces, made in different sizes and series, could look formulaic and repetitive, particularly in urban environments.<\/p>\n

But here in the idyllic, green setting of Kew Gardens, 40 years after Moore\u2019s death, these monumental creations can be seen afresh. Glimpsing \u201cLarge Two Forms\u201d (1969) in the distance through the apertures of \u201cDouble Oval\u201d is a memorable sight \u2014 different from what you might see in a museum. So too is the vision of the enormous white fiberglass \u201cLarge Reclining Figure\u201d (1983) playfully lounging on the grass in front of Kew\u2019s 18th-century Chinese-style Great Pagoda<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That attraction to nature has inspired Britons to visit permanent sculpture venues for decades. Some of the best-loved…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1897,6225,6485,6486,217583,1120,309,96,217579,217580,50407,217584,184837,217582,1291,217585,217586,3660,217581,10552,217587,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-645890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-art","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-blazwick","tag-design","tag-england","tag-entertainment","tag-gardens-and-gardening","tag-goodwood-art-foundation-west-sussex","tag-henry","tag-iwona","tag-london-england","tag-moore","tag-museum","tag-norfolk-england","tag-oxford-england","tag-oxford-university","tag-royal-botanic-gardens","tag-sculpture","tag-sussex-england","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}