Suggestions for Secondary Schools

Ages 11 to 14 (Key Stage 3) and 14 to 16 (Key Stage 4)

Henry Moore at Houghton Hall is the latest in a series of modern and contemporary art exhibitions that bring young people of school age into direct contact with ground breaking artists within the setting of an English country house. Houghton Hall was commissioned in the C18th by Sir Robert Walpole to house his art collection. It is therefore fitting that young people can experience modern and contemporary art in this unique context, contrasting the historic and the new. There are two subject suggestions explored at each educational level, relating to the work of Henry Moore on display in the park and gardens and in the house. These are suggestions, you may want to follow your own lines of inquiry in relation to Moore’s sculpture.

SECONDARY SCHOOLS

NATURE DISTILLED 

Henry Moore repeatedly drew directly from nature from which he configured his own vision of a subject’s essential quality, a distillation of what he saw in the natural world. He was inspired early on in his artistic career by the landscape of his home county Yorkshire, and then later by the natural features and subjects found in Norfolk. Like much of Norfolk, the landscape at Houghton Hall while natural looking, has been cultivated over thousands of years and re-planted with a master plan in mind and with natural features re-arranged and designed to please the eye. This prompts question about what is natural and what is artificial?

THE HOLE PICTURE 

Henry Moore uses the space between forms to describe parts of his figures. His forms are carefully balanced to excite the eye and the spaces between his figures do not necessarily read as holes or gaps but as contributing visual information.

Do the gaps in Moore’s sculpture complete or take away from the form being depicted?

Draw the spaces between a series of objects. This is known as negative space. The drawings will describe areas of nothingness. In carefully describing the space around something, you will describe the objects through their omission.

Go and see Rachel Whiteread’s Houghton Hut (No.9 on the map). Discuss how it was conceived, how it was cast and where it has been installed. Does it feel like a building? Or is it sculpture?

What other objects, not necessarily to do with art, are improved by the presence of a hole or gap? (Lifesaver, doughnut, Polo mint, or massage table).

Suggestions for Secondary Schools

Ages 11 to 14 (Key Stage 3) and 14 to 16 (Key Stage 4)

SECONDARY SCHOOLS

NATURE DISTILLED

SUGGESTED QUESTIONS

How would you improve upon nature, if you were inventing a new version of a tree, some sheep, deer or a bird?

What updates would you make to improve what you see on the Houghton estate? Should there be a lake? Does the sculpture look like it belongs in this landscape?

How would your suggested alterations change the form or function of a natural element you have identified?

THE HOLE PICTURE

Henry Moore uses the space between forms to describe parts of his figures. His forms are carefully balanced to excite the eye and the spaces between his figures do not necessarily read as holes or gaps but as contributing visual information.

Do the gaps in Moore’s sculpture complete or take away from the form being depicted?

Draw the spaces between a series of objects. This is known as negative space. The drawings will describe areas of nothingness. In carefully describing the space around something, you will describe the objects through their omission.

Go and see Rachel Whiteread’s Houghton Hut (No.9 on the map). Discuss how it was conceived, how it was cast and where it has been installed. Does it feel like a building? Or is it sculpture?

What other objects, not necessarily to do with art, are improved by the presence of a hole or gap? (Lifesaver, doughnut, Polo mint, or massage table).

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Suggestions for Secondary Schools

Ages 11 to 14 (Key Stage 3) and 14 to 16 (Key Stage 4)

SECONDARY SCHOOLS

NATURE DISTILLED

SUGGESTED QUESTIONS

How would you improve upon nature, if you were inventing a new version of a tree, some sheep, deer or a bird?

What updates would you make to improve what you see on the Houghton estate? Should there be a lake? Does the sculpture look like it belongs in this landscape?

How would your suggested alterations change the form or function of a natural element you have identified?

THE HOLE PICTURE

Henry Moore uses the space between forms to describe parts of his figures. His forms are carefully balanced to excite the eye and the spaces between his figures do not necessarily read as holes or gaps but as contributing visual information.

Do the gaps in Moore’s sculpture complete or take away from the form being depicted?

Draw the spaces between a series of objects. This is known as negative space. The drawings will describe areas of nothingness. In carefully describing the space around something, you will describe the objects through their omission.

Go and see Rachel Whiteread’s Houghton Hut (No.9 on the map). Discuss how it was conceived, how it was cast and where it has been installed. Does it feel like a building? Or is it sculpture?

What other objects, not necessarily to do with art, are improved by the presence of a hole or gap? (Lifesaver, doughnut, Polo mint, or massage table).

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NATURE DISTILLED 

THE HOLE PICTURE 