HENRY MOORE | RECLINING NUDE: CROSSED FEET

Acquired directly from the Artist by Philip and Muriel Berman, Allentown, Pennsylvania, April 1981

Their sale, Sotheby's New York, 5th November 2004, lot 280, where acquired by the previous owner

Their sale, Christie's New York, 6th November 2014, lot 494, where acquired by the present owner

Alan Bowness (ed.), Henry Moore, Compete Sculpture, 1980-86, Vol. 6, Lund Humphries, London, 1999, cat. no.788, illustrated p.36 (another cast).

'For me a work must first have a vitality of its own, I do not mean a reflection of the vitality of life of movement, physical action, frisking, dancing figures and so on, but that a work can have in it a pent-up-energy, an intense life of its own, independent of the object it may represent' (Henry Moore, quoted in Herbert Read (ed.), Unit One: The Modern Movement on English Architecture, Painting and Sculpture, London, 1934, p.30)

The present work is registered with the Henry Moore Foundation as LH 788, and is sold together with a corresponding letter from the HMF.

Reclining Figure: Crossed Feet was first owned by important art collectors and philanthropists Muriel and Philip Berman of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Philip was chairman of the Philadelphia Museum of Art from 1989 until October 1997 and lead a capital campaign that raised $63.4 million for the museum. He and his wife gifted $1million themselves along with several works of art. Philip and Muriel Berman began their collection with a few French Impressionist paintings, and then turned to American painting, and on to European Modernism with a particular focus on sculpture. Their collection came to include works by artists such as Rembrandt, Mary Cassatt, Chagall, Robert Rauschenberg and several important works by Henry Moore. They owned both monumental examples of his work, as well as several maquettes, including the present work. Their philanthropic endeavors continue today with The Philip and Muriel Berman Foundation which supports arts, culture, higher education and medicine in America and Israel.