Moore/Freud at Hastings Contemporary
Some artists' reputations precede them to the extent that the prospect of seeing an exhibition by them is not as exciting as it perhaps should be, particularly when they are no longer alive. During a recent visit to the coastal town, I visited Hastings Contemporary, which like Turner Contemporary in Margate is located directly facing the sea, and its surroundings are a great source inspiration for all forms of creative outputs. When I arrived and saw that the themes of this brief exhibition of works by Henry Moore and Lucian Freud are family and kinship, I did take a closer interest, mostly due to the fact that these more emotive themes are usually the curatorial focus of women artists, as if men artists orbit outside of the family unit and keep their professional creative lives entirely separate. It got me thinking about what might these two profoundly successful men might tell us about their attitudes towards family, and how would Hastings Contemporary take this on?
My initial thought was that this setup would have been improved immeasurably by women artists joining the 'dialogue' between Moore and Freud, with Paula Rego and Caroline Walker being my first choices. Alas, I am not the curator of this show, so let's look at what the show looks like.
One aspect that works especially well in 'Moore/Freud' (which incidentally has no subtitle; the museum just knows that people will flock to see these two masters) is the somewhat tongue-in-cheek assessment of family life. In introducing Lucian Freud's etchings of various family members, who Hastings Contemporary remind us are not treated with any particular emotion or sensitivity in the artworks' respective titles, the citation also tells us that Freud fathered fourteen children by six women. I had to sit with this information for a moment before coming to this realisation, but ultimately the non-traditional family setup did feel refreshing in a museum context, albeit through some degrees of philandering. It was also followed by the admission that many of his children did agree to sit for him, stating that visiting him for extended periods in his studio was their (only) way of forming a bond with him. While this is desperately sad, it is also fairly realistic to many children of nonchalant fathers, whereby meeting them where they are, in their emotionally remote lives filled with hyper-specific interests, is the only way of sharing any time or space with them.
The etchings in question feel painstakingly made, with frantic lines all coming together to create something deeply personal and meaningful. Perhaps that in itself is a strong analogy for parenting that is either non-traditional or otherwise challenging.
-75.jpg)
Meanwhile, Henry Moore's drawings depicting women and families taking refuge in London Underground stations during the Blitz, including Four Grey Sleepers, show an urgent side to the intimacy and connection which is depicted as casual and blasé in other works. The different ways in which we can exist in community with each other outside of bloodlines are also addressed in this exhibition. It is important to highlight these structures and stories, which exist outside of the socially conditioned ways we might relate to each other, and how we then decide who deserves our care. Despite the fact that Four Grey Sleepers was made in 1941, when the Blitz was taking place, many of the works from Moore's Shelter series were produced from memory, creating this moving combination of life experience and recent memory for further storytelling.
Moore's best known works are undoubtedly his sculptures, yet they are arguably less interesting in the context of what this exhibition is trying to say. Of course, most viewers would be expecting to see them, and that is one significant reason why they feature, but they certainly tell less of a story about the artist's attitude to intimate relationships, especially when surrounded by the works such as Four Grey Sleepers.
The exhibition is made up of three different rooms, and in the final one, we see Freud's portrait work arguably at its best. The intimacy that is lacking in Moore's sculptural works comes flooding back in a fantastic portrait of one of modern art's most famous muses, Sue Tilley, and another of John Minton. A painter, illustrator and stage designer who was also a friend of Freud, Minton's stuggles with depression and alcoholism are cited next to the eponymous painting, which boasts a whole wall to itself. He died by suicide before he could turn forty, and while personal details of an artist's sitter(s) can feel superfluous or invasive, the sitter's struggles seem intrinsic to Freud's depiction. Although he was a celebrated artist in his own right, the pain is clear in Freud's portrait, and this memento mori feels as if it is reaching out to his spirit through the darkness.
