I have been a professional sculptor for 20 years, and in that time Henry Moore has toppled from the pedestal I put him on when I was 14 and first saw his "Helmet Head" series of bronze sculptures on display in my home city of Edinburgh.
What excited me then was how vividly sculpture could convey the complexity of the human condition, navigate the currents of international art movements and also capture a sense of belonging to a particular place. Moore's work seemed to exemplify all of that.
Then, after I had spent 15 years living and working in Japan, overexposure to Moore's bronze figures dotted in the open air all over this country began to get to me. Added to that, I became disillusioned with Moore's later works that, having been scaled up by assistants from his tiny models, often lost in the translation the integrity that had so entranced me.
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