New Directions

In a London gallery last week, visitors had a chance to see the first show in three years by Britain's controversial sculptor Henry Moore. In all, there were 33 bronzes, ranging from an over-life-size King and Queen to tiny, four-inch-high models. Biggest surprise of all was an apparent shift away from Moore's familiar round, cream-smooth figures with holes in their stomachs. Some of the new pieces are spiky spindles; others show a turn to classic Greek lines.

Moore himself admits that he is trying out some new approaches, but denies any fundamental change of style. Discussing his helmeted king and his queen, a spatulate pair sitting in a sort of bleak majesty on a bench, he insists that the shapes of his figures are mostly determined by choice of material. Says he: "In bronze you start with space. In stone you start with a hunk of something, and work down ... In the King and Queen, I was trying to give the impression of a helmeted. almost masked head. The king's head contrasts with the body. The head is impressionistic, almost abstract. The body is naturalistic. Somehow I wanted to make it that way. He's a man, and at the same time he's a king."

Another sculpture, a small bronze, looks at first glance like a piece of gracefully wrought armor. But characteristically, the front right shoulder is cut away, revealing the back. "I've always been fascinated by armor," says Moore, "and by the idea of enclosing space. Armor holds the space rigid, unlike drapery . . ." Close to Greek form is a neatly modeled Draped Torso, which looks like a cosy sweater for Aphrodite.

Back at his studio in Hertfordshire, Sculptor Moore, now 55, is working on two new pieces, one in wood, the other in stone. Both are proof, he says, that his style has not really changed. They are long, abstract sculptures hollowed out like wombs.

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