Henry Moore

Private Collection, New York
Collection of Alexander P. Van Herckenrode, Madrid

Alan Bowness, Henry Moore, Sculpture 1980-86,  London, 1999, vol. 6, no. 918, illustration of another cast pp. 63 & 145-48

Work is in excellent condition. Varied golden brown patina. Minor patina rubbing on edges of shoulders. Minor surface dirt in crevices near bases is easily cleaned away, and a few tiny stains scattered around neck. Surface is very nicely textured and worked.
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Stemming from the latter part of Moore's career, the present work is a wonderful example of the artist's ability to render a recognizable subject in such a striking, signature way.

Arguably the greatest British sculptor of all time, Moore began his career reinventing the method of carving and molding material. His ambition was to re-examine and confront the common perception of sculpture as the following of Classical methodology. Although this theory had been approached before, by Constantin Brancusi amongst others, Moore pushed abstraction in sculpture right into the forefront of our imaginations - he changed the British public's perception of what sculpture meant and could achieve. Together with the British Arts Council, who to their credit financed much of his post-war work, Moore re-directed art and sculpture in Britain away from the standardized naturalistic memorials of old into a confident new age.

The present work goes straight to the root of Moore's first inspirations as a sculptor in the late 1920s - he was hugely impressed by the ancient Mexican sculpture that he saw at the British Museum, which were to have a profound affect on his oeuvre. Strong figuration and wholesome bulk are key motifs in much of Moore's later work including the present piece. The figure is erect and strong, the nose Roman and forming a vertical, axe-like, edge down the center of the face. The eyes are deep recesses - cleanly cut voids that contrast with the overall smooth, organic, surface of the work in keeping with Moore's mantra of "truth to material."

"For me a work must have a vitality of its own. I do not mean a reflection of the vitality of life, of movement, of physical action, frisking, dancing figures and so on, but that in it a work can have a pent up energy, an intense life of its own, independent of the object it may represent. When a work has this powerful vitality we do not connect the word beauty with it. Beauty, in the later greek or renaissance sense, is not the aim of my sculpture" (Henry Moore in Unit One, 1934).