Cristóbal Gracia, Yale MFA 2022, is the inaugural Artist in Residence in new partnership between the Henry Moore Foundation and the Yale Center for British Art.
NEW HAVEN, CT (June 18, 2022) — The Henry Moore Foundation (HMF) and the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) have partnered to award an annual monthlong residency to a current MFA student or recent MFA graduate of the Yale School of Art with an interest in the life and work of Henry Moore. Cristóbal Gracia, who received his degree in sculpture in May 2022, has been selected as the first resident. His term begins this month.
Gracia will live and work at the Henry Moore Studios & Gardens (HMS&G) at Perry Green in Hertfordshire, UK, benefiting from the close proximity to the HMF collections, research facilities, and expert staff. He will also spend time at the Foundation’s Henry Moore Institute (HMI) in Leeds, where he will have access to its research library for the study of sculpture. The residency will grant Gracia the opportunity to generate fresh insights and knowledge about Moore’s work, as well as British modernism and sculpture more generally.
Located at the artist’s former home, HMS&G holds one of the world’s largest collections of archives and artworks by a single artist. With a wealth of staff expertise, it offers an unrivaled resource for the understanding and appreciation of every aspect of Moore’s practice and legacy.
“I am very excited to have been invited as Artist in Residence,” said Gracia. “Being born and raised in Mexico City, one of my most immediate interests in Moore’s work is his relationship to Mexico, especially to the pre-Columbian cultures and also to Mexican modern art. The Henry Moore Foundation is an amazing space that can provide tremendous inspiration and information to artists. I had the opportunity to visit the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds a couple of times in 2017. I look forward to coming back to the Institute and the Foundation for a longer time to explore its collection and history.”
“Since the Foundation’s inception, supporting artists and the appreciation of sculpture has been at the heart of our vision,” explained Sebastiano Barassi, Head of Henry Moore Collections & Programmes at the HMF. “I am delighted we have established a collaboration with the Yale Center for British Art and Yale School of Art, and I am looking forward to welcoming Cristóbal.”
“It has been a pleasure to work with the Henry Moore Foundation in developing this new residency to support Yale School of Art graduates,” noted Courtney J. Martin, Paul Mellon Director of the YCBA. “I look forward to seeing how Cristóbal and future artists will engage with Moore’s work, offering new perspectives and expanding the comprehension of British modernist sculpture for a wider audience.”
“Post-MFA opportunities like these provide another rich and supportive environment for artists to flourish,” said Kymberly Pinder, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Dean of the Yale School of Art. “I have been awed and inspired by Cristobal’s precise and thoughtful art practice and look forward to seeing what he will bring to this new Yale collaboration with the Henry Moore Foundation.”
About Cristóbal Gracia
Cristóbal Gracia (b. 1987) reshapes historical milestones and social and cultural phenomena through the investigation, connection, and reconstruction of official chronicles, microhistories, and urban myths. Using tools such as humor, fiction, violence, desire, and failure, his work challenges the ideological and power systems that govern and have constructed Western contemporary civilization. His work has been shown in Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, England, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, and the United States, in venues including Museo Universitario del Chopo, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Museo Tamayo, Casa del Lago, Human Resources, The BOX gallery L.A, the Biennial of the Americas, Palais de Tokyo, Blain | Southern, the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, La Ene, the M100 Matucana, and Clark House Initiative. Gracia earned an MFA in sculpture from the Yale School of Art in 2022.
About the Henry Moore Foundation
The Henry Moore Foundation was founded by the artist and his family in 1977 to encourage public appreciation of the visual arts. Today, it supports innovative sculpture projects, devises an imaginative program of exhibitions and research worldwide, and preserves the legacy of Moore himself: one of the great sculptors of the twentieth century, who did so much to bring the art form to a wider audience.
The Foundation runs two venues, in Leeds and Hertfordshire, showing a mix of Moore’s own work and other sculpture. It also funds a variety of sculpture projects through the Henry Moore Grants and Research programs and has a world-class collection of artworks which regularly tour in the United Kingdom and internationally.
About the Yale Center for British Art
The Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) houses the largest collection of British art outside the United Kingdom, encompassing works in a range of media from the fifteenth century to the present. The museum offers a vibrant program of events and exhibitions year-round in person and online. Opened to the public in 1977, the Yale Center for British Art’s core collection and landmark building—designed by architect Louis I. Kahn—were a gift to Yale University from the collector and philanthropist Paul Mellon (Yale College, Class of 1929).
