HENRY MOORE | MAQUETTE FOR MOTHER AND CHILD WITH APPLE

Lord Kenneth Clark, London

His Estate sale, Sotheby's Parke Bernet & Co., London, 27th June 1984, lot 60, where acquired by the previous owner

Their sale, Christie's New York, 6th November 2013, lot 462, where acquired by the present owner

Alan Bowness (ed.), Henry Moore, Complete Sculpture 1964-73, Vol. 4, Lund Humphries, London, 1977, Addendum to Catalogue 1955-64, cat. no.406a, p.31;

William S. Liberman, Henry Moore, 60 Years of His Art, Thames & Hudson, London, 1983, illustrated p.80 (another cast);

Alan Bowness (ed.), Henry Moore, Complete Sculpture 1955-1964, Vol. 3, Lund Humphries, London, 1986, cat. no.406a (another cast);

John Hedgecoe, Henry Moore, A Monumental Vision, Collins & Brown, London, 1998, cat. no.373, illustrated p.220 (another cast). 

‘Whenever I write to you nowadays it seems to be to thank you for something you’ve done for me’ (Henry Moore, Letter to Sir Kenneth Clark, 26th March 1939, p.1 Tate Archive TGA 8812/1/3/2033)

The present work is registered with the Henry Moore Foundation as LH 406a, and is sold together with a corresponding letter from the HMF. 

It is significant that the first owner of the present work was Kenneth Clark who, more than any other person, had a fundamental impact on Henry Moore’s career. Clark purchased drawings from Moore’s first solo exhibition at the Warren Gallery in 1928. Moore and Clark were to become very close friends, and Clark’s wife Jane was made godmother to Moore’s daughter Mary. Clark was to continue to collect Moore’s work throughout his lifetime, adding a series of Henry Moore maquettes to his collection, including the present work.

Clark was instrumental in reintroducing Moore to the Rosenberg and Helft Gallery, London (Picasso’s Parisian dealer) and played a pivotal role in certain museum purchases: advising Moore on the price he should accept for the purchase of a work by the Museum of Modern Art, New York and playing an instrumental role in the Tate Gallery’s acquisition of Moore’s Recumbent Figure as well as the acquisition by the Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, of Moore’s elmwood Reclining Figure of 1935–6. This was all prior to the Second World War when he proposed and became chair of the government’s War Artist’s Committee, established to provide income and protection for artists as well as a record of the conflict. Moore’s shelter drawings created for this purpose would be radically transform his reputation (see lot 7).