February 01, 2007	Thursday	Muharram 12, 1428

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 31: Residents of the capital for the first time ever will have the opportunity to experience what real abstract sculpture piece looks like. This would come in the form of an exhibition of works of the famous British sculptor Henry Spencer Moore (1898-1986).

Acting president Mohammadmian Soomro will inaugurate the exhibition on Thursday at the Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA).

Art lovers will have the rare opportunity of seeing a range of exceptionally-beautiful pieces, including the world famous reclining sculpture ‘Dawn’ as well as ‘Sunset’.

The print ‘Minerva, Prometheus and Pandora’ will also be on show at the exhibition. Moore made this illustration in 1950 for Andre Gide’s translation of Goethe’s work ‘Prometheus’.

The piece comes with lithographs of five of W.H. Auden’s poems, and seven other black pieces because “there was never any question of introducing colour because Moore was always after a printed image identical to the blackness of the drawing”.

Art enthusiasts will experience delight at seeing the etching ‘Spreading Branches of Trees’ made in 1979. Five more sketches placed alongside it show Moore’s experiment with colours.

Henry Spencer Moore was the son of a mining engineer. He was born in Yorkshire, and decided to become a sculptor at a young age of 11. He received ample encouragement from his schoolteacher who introduced him to Michelangelo’s work.

With this beginning, Moore achieved world fame for his bronze and marble sculpture, depicting abstractions of human figure.

Interestingly, the subject is nearly always a female figure, and most of them are pierced, or contain hollow voids.

Many interpret the undulating forms of his reclining sculpted pieces as “an effort on the part of the spectator to move on to the next object, making no effort to ponder the meaning of what he has just seen”.