Ideas for Sculpture: Six Half-Figures

1924–1932

Teaching at the Royal College of Art

From 1924 to 1932 Moore taught at the Royal College of Art, leaving only once, for his trip to Italy; he had to work just two days a week, which left him time for his own work.

19 July 1929

Marries Irina Radetsky, born in Kiev

On 19 July 1929 Moore married Irina Radetsky, a painting student at the Royal College, born in Kiev in 1907; her father was killed in the Russian Revolution and her mother was evacuated to Paris. Irina found security in the marriage and was soon posing for him.

1929–1940

A studio in Hampstead, “a nest of gentle artists”

Soon after the wedding the couple moved to a studio at 11a Parkhill Road in Hampstead, joining a colony of avant-garde artists: Hepworth and her husband Ben Nicholson lived around the corner, along with Naum Gabo, Roland Penrose, Cecil Stephenson and the critic Herbert Read, who called the area “a nest of gentle artists”.

1930s

Paris: Picasso, Braque, Arp, Giacometti

Moore, Hepworth and other members of the Seven and Five Society moved steadily towards abstraction, partly through frequent trips to Paris and contact with Picasso, Braque, Jean Arp and Alberto Giacometti.

1932

Heads the sculpture department at Chelsea

In 1932 Moore took up the post of Head of the Department of Sculpture at the Chelsea School of Art.

1933

Joins Paul Nash’s “Unit One”

Flirting with Surrealism, in 1933 Moore joined Paul Nash’s modern art group Unit One.