Henry Moore, O.M., C.H.

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner

Alan Bowness, Henry Moore Complete Sculpture, 1980-1986, vol. 6, London, 1986, no.876, p.55, illustrated p.54 (another cast). 

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''There are two particular motives or subjects which I have constantly used in my sculpture in the last twenty years', Moore once wrote, 'they are the Reclining Figure idea and the Mother and Child idea'. (Perhaps of the two the Mother and Child has been the more fundamental obsession)" (Herbert Read, Mother and Child: the Art of Henry Moore , 1966, p. 29).

Conceived in 1982, the present work is a fine example of the latter theme. The composition is described simply as Seated Woman Holding Child, but the title gives little indication of the energy that is inherent in this work. Moore has rendered his sitter neither passive nor lifeless, but as alert, anticipating the movements of her charge. The figure leans forward to address her child, balancing her shifting body weight with her extended arm. With its simplicity of form and complexity of meaning, this engaging work demonstrates the aesthetic that dominated Moore's work throughout his life.

Moore was mindful of the Christian connotation of the theme of mother and child in the history of art. One of his first serious attempts at rendering the theme was in 1943, when he was asked to carve a Madonna and Child for St Matthew's Church in Northampton, England (Fig. 1). The commission sparked his interest in these forms, which he would adjust and reinterpret sporadically during the rest of his career. In the present work, however, he has secularised the theme and reinvested the image with a universality that transcends religion.