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

The Hanover Gallery, London
Rosamund Gladstone (née Fellowes), United Kingdom (acquired from the above on 4th April 1950)
Thence by descent to the present owner

David Sylvester (ed.), Henry Moore Complete Sculpture, 1921-48, London, 1988, vol. I, no. 227, illustration of the terracotta p. 143

Attractive dark green patina. Apart from a few minor spots of vertigris in the recesses, this work is in good condition.
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The present work is a cast of the terracotta maquette for one of Henry Moore's most celebrated works, the Harlow Family Group of 1954-55. Harlow became one of the large 'new' towns developed following the war to encourage family life and a better quailty of living outside London. As an overall representation of the hopes of the planners Family Group, Harlow's centrepiece, was a triumph.

The theme of the family group was one that had a special significance for Henry Moore around the late 1940s and 1950s following the birth of his first child, Mary. The theme represents the mood of the country following the war: a close knit group, morally upholding the re-birth of a nation following the ravages of the early 1940s. The artist said of this series: 'The family group ideas were all generated by drawings: and that was perhaps because the whole family group idea was so close to one as a person; we were just going to have our first child Mary, and it was an obsession' (quoted in J. Summers, Henry Moore, From the Inside Out, Munich, 1996). 

Discussing this important series in the context of the artist's œuvre, Will Grohmann noted: 'With the Family Group theme Moore regained his freedom since the commissions received were less restricting. He started working on these groups at about the same time as the Madonna. In the years 1944 to 1947 he produced a number of larger and smaller variations in stone, bronze and terracotta, differing considerably from one another, being both naturalistic and non-naturalistic, though never as abstract as the Reclining Figures. The theme does not hem him in, but demands a certain readiness to enter into the meaning of a community such as a family. "To be an artist is to believe in life" Moore writes and this includes family life...' (W. Grohmann, Henry Moore, London, 1960, p. 141).