Ronald Moody: Sculpting Life

The first major monograph on sculptor Ronald Moody, exploring his legacy and impact through his key artistic relationships, networks and influences, and his relationship with nature, humanity and spirituality.

Coinciding with a major retrospective at The Hepworth Wakefield in summer 2024, this biography moves beyond the dominant narrative, which grounds Moody as forgotten, invisible and marginalized. Instead, it contemplates Moody through a lens that explores the development of his art practice, contributions, impact and value to the landscape of British and international art history. It reproduces scores of Moody works, from largescale figurative sculptures made in wood in the 1930s through to post-war experimentation with concrete and resin casting. These pieces are set within the context of his contemporaries Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, artists he exhibited alongside such as his friend Jacob Epstein, and the group known as the Caribbean Artists Movement, of which Moody was a founding member.

Ronald Moody also includes the artist’s broader creative endeavours such as poetry, writings and broadcasts that he turned to at the advent of the Second World War, in which he discusses his artistic influences.