Henry Moore's Warrior returns to Palazzo Vecchio after 50 years

The work will remain at Palazzo Vecchio until 9 January, while the great retrospective continues at the Museo Novecento

After almost 50 years, Henry Moore returns to Florence: it was 1972 when the sculptor was the protagonist of the memorable exhibition at Forte di Belvedere. From 18 May to 9 January 2022 the new installation HENRY MOORE RELOCATED - Warrior with Shield will inhabit the Sala Leone X of Palazzo Vecchio.

The bronze sculpture Warrior with Shield was donated by Moore to the city of Florence in 1972, shortly after his great exhibition at Forte Belvedere, and should have been placed in Palazzo Vecchio, but for a series of events it did not arrive. Today, however, it finally returns to where the artist had imagined it. The exhibition is curated by Sergio Risaliti, artistic director of the Museo Novecento, in collaboration with the Municipality of Florence, MUS.E, the British Institute of Florence and Operaof Santa Croce.

But over 100 works by the great English artist are already on display at the Museo del Novecento in two exhibition itineraries: The Sculptor's Drawing. Henry Moore, open until 18 July 2021, and Henry Moore in Tuscany, open until 30 May 2021.

Henry Moore nel suo studio

With Henry Moore. The Sculptor's Drawing sheds light on the graphic production of this protagonist of contemporary sculpture, who in the course of his intense activity has also had the opportunity to confront the tradition of great Italian art of previous centuries, in particular that of the masters active in Florence and Tuscany, the great creators of humanism in art. In fact, the city represented a salient and perhaps crucial moment in the formation of Moore's artistic genius, having come to the city for the first time in 1925, during his first study trip to Italy, thanks to a scholarship provided by the Royal College of Art. That was the occasion to admire and observe the creations of the great masters of the past, including Giotto, Donatello, Masaccio and Michelangelo.

The exhibition thus reinforces Moore's bond with the territory, which still hosts monumental works by the artist and which, in addition to the important 1972 exhibition, hosted an exhibition in the Sala d'Arme of Palazzo Vecchio in 1987.

Henry Moore, Square Form with Cut

As a collateral event to the exhibition Henry Moore. The sculptor's drawing, the Museo Novecento is hosting the exhibition Henry Moore in Tuscany from 18 January to 30 May 2021 in the rooms on the second floor adjacent to the Alberto Della Ragione collection.
The aim of the project is to underline the link between the sculptor and the Tuscan territory, presenting a series of works from private collections which, together with documents and photographs, bear witness to the intense artistic and emotional relationship that bound the sculptor to the city of Florence and Tuscany. The works on display - all purchased in the years leading up to the Florentine anthological exhibition - bear witness to the cultural enterprise and taste of contemporary art lovers who were able to see beauty and poetry, even in disruptive new forms such as those of Moore in those years. Enlightened collectors, thanks to whom the great operation of Forte Belvedere was created, and shortly afterwards the one carried out in Prato, which, with the speed and sense of risk typical of the wool city, was able to win one of Moore's monumental sculptures presented on the bastions of the Forte.