Not so Gentle? War and Conflict in the Art of Henry Moore
May 18, 2026 6:30 pm
Art Society Lecture
Not so Gentle? War and Conflict in the Art of Henry Moore
Not so Gentle? War and Conflict in the Art of Henry Moore
Hunter Theatre
The critic Herbert Read once famously described the group of avant-garde artists centred around Henry Moore in the Hampstead area of northwest London in the 1930s as “a nest of gentle artists”. When world events demanded, however, Moore was quick to put his art at the service of harsher realities. This lecture will trace an unfamiliar aspect of Moore’s oeuvre, from his response to the Spanish Civil War through his work as an official war artist during World War Two to his response to the Holocaust, the Cold War and the continued threat of atomic warfare in the 1960s.
Monica Bohm-Duchen
London-based freelance lecturer, writer and exhibition organiser, Monica has lectured for the Tate, the National Gallery, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Open University, Sotheby’s Institute of Art and the Courtauld Institute of Art. She was an Associate Lecturer at Birkbeck College for over 15 years and has led many art tours, mainly for Martin Randall Travel. Publications include Understanding Modern Art (1991), Chagall (1998/2001), The Private Life of a Masterpiece (2001), and Art and the Second World War (2013). She is the founding director of the ongoing Insiders/Outsiders project, and contributing editor of its companion volume, Insiders/Outsiders: Refugees from Nazi Europe and their Contribution to British Visual Culture (2019). Monica has been an accredited lecturer with the Arts Society since 2012.
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