The sculptor Henry Moore's famous reclining figures are on display around the world, from Finland to Iran. Walk down Corniche Road in Jeddah and four of his enormous public works look out over the Red Sea. His pieces light up Hong Kong, Taiwan and, of course, the UK. A major retrospective of his work, currently on display at Tate Britain in London, goes some way towards explaining his global appeal.
The British artist, who died in 1986, is of course famous for his monumental sculptures, punctured with modernist holes, smooth curves and suggestive protrusions. But his influences, as this exhibition suggests almost as soon as you walk in the door, were some distance removed from the northern English mining town where he grew up. Ancient Mexican art, and particularly the Mesoamerican stone statues - which he first saw in the Louvre in Paris in 1924 - had a profound effect on him. It's no surprise that the piece he first clamped his eyes on during that trip to Paris was, naturally, a reclining figure.
And Moore's interest in African sculpture was also key. For him, it offered a permanence and an alternative to the horrors of the First World War. His notebooks of this post-war period - also on display at Tate Britain - are full of Egyptian, Peruvian and Oceanic-influenced sketches. Today, there's something incredibly satisfying about work so clearly influenced by South American and African art taking pride of place at two separate museums in Mexico City, at galleries in Venezuela, Argentina and Johannesburg.
In a way, that's not completely surprising; a recent survey suggested that Moore's body of work comprises a staggering 12,000 items. He made no apology for returning to the same subjects again and again. His Mother and Child works - again influenced by Native American art - were, as he put it himself, "an inexhaustible motif" that always offered him new possibilities, even if the viewer has to really concentrate to see the differences.
This, of course, has a downside. Moore became the go-to guy for British town planners wishing to make a statement about their shiny new conurbations built out of the rubble of the Second World War. And, in the end, such ubiquity has become something of a problem for critics tired of his omnipresence in 20th-century art. But it is good - great, even - to be able to stand outside the Karlskirche in Vienna or the National Library of Australia and admire these hulking reclining figures, rather than have them locked away in gallery spaces.
Oddly, the retrospective has had the opposite effect to that which one suspects the Tate intended: critics have lined up to say Moore is comfortable, passive, or polite. Perhaps that's the repetitive nature of his shows across the world; these seem like the words of tired reviewers unable to stomach yet more curatorial claims for his sculptural brilliance.
But it is certainly true that his drawings - during the Second World War Moore abandoned sculpture for draughtsmanship - represent the most revealing section of the exhibition. This isn't the first time these works have prompted a re-evaluation of Moore's craft. His reputation was transformed during the war. Nevertheless, his depictions of a mass of skeletal, almost mummified figures cowering in air raid shelters are hugely evocative. The mine drawings - his father was an engineer in a Castleford colliery - seem to have more of Moore, if you will, within them. They capture the dark claustrophobia of the pit brilliantly.
Of course, Moore's drawings aren't so widely accessible around the world as his sculptures. Apart from the commissions for the new towns of the UK, he was also asked to provide work to sit outside the Unesco building in Paris and the Lincoln Centre in New York. Interestingly, he admitted, "I don't like doing commissions in the sense that I go and look at a site and then think of something... I try to choose something suitable from what I've done or from what I'm about to do." That's certainly not how you'd expect the likes of Antony Gormley, whose similarly popular sculpture of human forms is becoming just as ubiquitous for the ambitious town as Moore's, to speak.
Sometimes Moore had no say in the matter anyway. Cities such as Toronto and Dallas didn't go down the rather laborious route of commissioning Moore. They just bought into the iconography by getting their cash out, acquiring his work, and plonking it outside an important building. It wasn't only UK towns, then, that saw a Moore work as emblematic. The list of American towns that boast one of his sculptures is little short of incredible. From Baltimore to Wichita, the acquisition of a Henry Moore was proof that a city was going places.
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
THE CARD
2pm: Maiden Dh 60,000 (Dirt) 1,400m
2.30pm: Handicap Dh 76,000 (D) 1,400m
3pm: Handicap Dh 64,000 (D) 1,200m
3.30pm: Shadwell Farm Conditions Dh 100,000 (D) 1,000m
4pm: Maiden Dh 60,000 (D) 1,000m
4.30pm: Handicap 64,000 (D) 1,950m
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Director: Laxman Utekar
Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Akshaye Khanna, Diana Penty, Vineet Kumar Singh, Rashmika Mandanna
Rating: 1/5
The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
Hidden killer
Sepsis arises when the body tries to fight an infection but damages its own tissue and organs in the process.
The World Health Organisation estimates it affects about 30 million people each year and that about six million die.
Of those about three million are newborns and 1.2 are young children.
Patients with septic shock must often have limbs amputated if clots in their limbs prevent blood flow, causing the limbs to die.
Campaigners say the condition is often diagnosed far too late by medical professionals and that many patients wait too long to seek treatment, confusing the symptoms with flu.
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Milestones on the road to union
1970
October 26: Bahrain withdraws from a proposal to create a federation of nine with the seven Trucial States and Qatar.
December: Ahmed Al Suwaidi visits New York to discuss potential UN membership.
1971
March 1: Alex Douglas Hume, Conservative foreign secretary confirms that Britain will leave the Gulf and “strongly supports” the creation of a Union of Arab Emirates.
July 12: Historic meeting at which Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid make a binding agreement to create what will become the UAE.
July 18: It is announced that the UAE will be formed from six emirates, with a proposed constitution signed. RAK is not yet part of the agreement.
August 6: The fifth anniversary of Sheikh Zayed becoming Ruler of Abu Dhabi, with official celebrations deferred until later in the year.
August 15: Bahrain becomes independent.
September 3: Qatar becomes independent.
November 23-25: Meeting with Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid and senior British officials to fix December 2 as date of creation of the UAE.
November 29: At 5.30pm Iranian forces seize the Greater and Lesser Tunbs by force.
November 30: Despite a power sharing agreement, Tehran takes full control of Abu Musa.
November 31: UK officials visit all six participating Emirates to formally end the Trucial States treaties
December 2: 11am, Dubai. New Supreme Council formally elects Sheikh Zayed as President. Treaty of Friendship signed with the UK. 11.30am. Flag raising ceremony at Union House and Al Manhal Palace in Abu Dhabi witnessed by Sheikh Khalifa, then Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.
December 6: Arab League formally admits the UAE. The first British Ambassador presents his credentials to Sheikh Zayed.
December 9: UAE joins the United Nations.
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
