PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTION
Henry Moore
TWO WOMEN AND CHILDREN
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Henry Moore
1898 - 1986
TWO WOMEN AND CHILDREN
signed Moore and dated 45 (lower right)
watercolour, wax crayon, brush and ink, wash and charcoal on paper
45.8 by 58.2cm., 18 by 22 7/8 in.
Executed in 1945.
Lire le rapport d'état
Lire le rapport d'état
watercolour, wax crayon, brush and ink, wash and charcoal on paper
45.8 by 58.2cm., 18 by 22 7/8 in.
Executed in 1945.
Provenance
Buchholz Gallery (Curt Valentin), New York
Alexander Liberman, New York
E.V. Thaw & Co., New York
Mr & Mrs John Hay Whitney, New York (acquired from the above in November 1967; sale: Sotheby's, New York, 10th May 1999, lot 34)
Alfred Taubman, New York (purchased at the above sale; sale: Sotheby's, New York, The Collection of A. Alfred Taubman, 5th November 2015, lot 101T)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner
Alexander Liberman, New York
E.V. Thaw & Co., New York
Mr & Mrs John Hay Whitney, New York (acquired from the above in November 1967; sale: Sotheby's, New York, 10th May 1999, lot 34)
Alfred Taubman, New York (purchased at the above sale; sale: Sotheby's, New York, The Collection of A. Alfred Taubman, 5th November 2015, lot 101T)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner
Bibliographie
Alan G. Wilkinson, The Drawings of Henry Moore, New York & London, 1984, p. 249
Ann Garrould (ed.), Henry Moore, Complete Drawings 1940-49, London, 2001, vol. III, no. AG 45.8, illustrated p. 236
Ann Garrould (ed.), Henry Moore, Complete Drawings 1940-49, London, 2001, vol. III, no. AG 45.8, illustrated p. 236
Description
Two Women and Children is closely related to the bronze Family Group of 1944 (Alan Bowness & Herbert Read, Henry Moore, Sculpture and Drawings, London, 1965, vol. I, no. 233). Executed a year after the bronze, this work reverses the positions of the figures and more fully separates the two pairs. Unlike many drawings that served as the studies for sculpture, this drawing was made after a completed sculpture, highlighting the inter-relatedness of the two media in Henry Moore's creative process. As the artist himself said, ‘although I am primarily a sculptor, I’ve never separated my interest or appreciation of painting from sculpture’ (Alan G. Wilkinson, op. cit., p.11).
Both the Family Group and the Mother and Child themes were central to Moore's art. In this drawing and the related sculptural groups, he conveys both the gravitas and timelessness of the traditional figurative pose of the Madonna and Child, and the intimacy and temporality of a mother holding her child in her lap. In Moore’s own words: ‘From very early on I have had an obsession with the Mother and Child theme. It has been a universal theme from the beginning of time and some of the earliest sculptures we’ve found from the Neolithic Age are of a Mother and Child. I discovered when drawing, I could turn every little scribble, blot or smudge into a Mother and Child. (Later, I did the same with the Reclining Figure theme!) So that I was conditioned, as it were, to see it in everything. I suppose it could be explained as a 'Mother' complex’ (Henry Moore & John Hedgecoe, Henry Moore, My Ideas, Inspiration and Life as an Artist, London, 1986, p. 155).
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