黑料社

Art Term

Biomorphic

Biomorphic forms or images are ones that while abstract nevertheless refer to, or evoke, living forms such as plants and the human body

Jean Arp (Hans Arp)
Sculpture to be Lost in the Forest (1932, cast c.1953鈥�8)
Tate

Biomorphic comes from combining the Greek words 鈥榖ios鈥�, meaning life, and 鈥榤orphe鈥�, meaning form.

The term seems to have come into use around the 1930s to describe the imagery in the more abstract types of surrealist painting and sculpture particularly in the work of Joan Mir贸 and Jean Arp (see automatism). Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth also produced some superb biomorphs at that time, and later so did Louise Bourgeois.

Selected artworks in the collection

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