The groundbreaking exhibition New Aspects of British Sculpture at the British Pavilion of the 1952 Venice Biennale was a direct challenge to Moore and Hepworth. It featured a group of young sculptors such as Reg Butler, Lynn Chadwick and Kenneth Armitage, all portraying what the exhibition’s curator, Herbert Read, referred to as the ‘geometry of fear’.
They had common cause with European post-war sculptors of the time, such as Giacometti and Germaine Richier, who were focusing on humanity’s post-war existential crisis. As if in defiance, Moore created sculptures of family groups throughout the 1950s — a humane, unifying image set against the slaughter of war.
