(59) Old Henry

Yorkshire sculptor Henry Moore's special relationship to Toryonto has slipped spomewhat from the general consciousness but compares to that professed to in later decades by the Rolling Stones. Good on old Henry! We miss his visits to the POWcityblog bunker's rifle range where a crate of .303 ammunition and a barrel of scrumpy often made for an afternoon's distraction. Henry handled a Mark IV SMLE with the same deftness he did his mallets. We sometimes wish he hadn't caused Miranda's predecessor in the role of downstairs maid, Ulrike, to quit so suddenly but that terrible misunderstanding between her and Henry involving twenty kilograms of bratwurst and a box of fly paper was ultimately not remediable, ...such can be the life of a great artist with an eye for the female form!

Before we met Henry he was a household name in Toronto for many years. Collecting grandfather from the Drake Hotel one evening in 1960 we discovered he and Henry had been confreres for years. About then there was a great deal of now quaint "modern art" fuss over his bronze work The Archer in Natahan Philips Square. The AGO's holdings of HM's work represent a cultural treasure for our city. We remember the general public interest in Moore from our boyhood onward. Once on a provincially funded television network we saw a group of blind people being let loose in a gallery full of curvaceous sculpture. They commenced to touching his work all over with an enthusiasm at least as catchy as the opening verse to Sympathy for the Devil.

We predict a well-deserved resurgence of enthusiasm for Moore's work this year. As the mindless thrum of lawn mowers, weed whackers, leaf blowers, air conditioners, and motor vehicles layers itself over the warmer months we can't think of a place we'd rather be than in a cool, quiet gallery of Henry Moore's work, blind or not! Our psychogeography includes indoor locations without prejudice.

editor's note: in the lobby of an office building at Bay & Richmond (MUNICH RE) there is a small, virtually unnoticed Moore.