HENRY MOORE OM CH
Castleford 1898 - 1986 Much Hadham
Ref: BR 23
Family group
Signed lower right on the back of the base and again lower right on the bench: Moore
Medium: Small
0.75 x 4.76 x 2.36 (in) / 1.9 x 12.1 x 6 (cm)
On a Slate base: 0.75 x 4.76 x 3.86 (in) / 1.9 x 12.1 x 9.8 (cm)
Family group
Signed lower right on the back of the base
and again lower right on the bench: Moore
Bronze with a dark green patina:
5 ⅛ x 3 ¾ x 2 ⅜ in / 13 x 9.5 x 6 cm
On a slate base: ¾ x 4 ¾ x 3 ⅞ in / 1.9 x 12.1 x 9.8 cm
Conceived in terracotta in 1945 and cast circa 1945 by Charles Gaskin, The Art Bronze Foundry, London, in an unnumbered edition of 7 plus 1 artist’s copy
LH 239
Provenance:
Berkeley Galleries, London;
Sir Duncan Oppenheim (1904-2003), acquired from the above in July 1945
Exhibited:
London, Berkeley Galleries, Henry Moore: Sculptures and Drawings, 26th March-21st April 1945, no.5, as The Family, illus. (another cast)
London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Arts Council exhibition, Painting, Sculpture and Drawing in Britain 1940-49, 1st-26th November 1972, no.173, as Sketch Model for Family Group (another cast); this exhibition travelled to Southampton, City Art Gallery, 16th December 1972-13th January 1973; Carlisle, Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery, 20th January-11th February 1973; Durham, DLI Museum and Arts Centre, 17th February-11th March 1973; Manchester, City Art Gallery, 17th March-8th April 1973; Bradford, City Art Gallery, 14th April-6th May 1973 and Aberdeen, Museum and Art Gallery, 12th May-3rd June 1973
London, Tate Gallery, The Henry Moore Gift, 28th June-28th August 1978, illus. p.24 (another cast)
Mexico City, Museo Dolores Olmedo, Henry Moore y México, 4th June-9th October 2005, no.33, illus. p.63 (another cast)
Literature:
James Johnson Sweeney, Henry Moore, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York 1946 (terracotta illus. p.89)
David Sylvester, ‘The Evolution of Henry Moore’s Sculpture II’, Burlington Magazine, vol.90, no.544, July 1948, p.193
David Sylvester (ed.), Henry Moore Complete Sculpture 1921–48, Vol 1, Lund Humphries, London 1957, p.15, no.239
Ionel Jianou, Henry Moore, Arted, Editions d’Art, Paris 1968, p.74, no.226
John Hedgecoe and Henry Moore, Henry Moore, Simon and Schuster, New York 1968, no.9 (another cast illus. p.177)
Claude Allemand-Cosneau, Manfred Fath and David Mitchinson (eds), Henry Moore: From the Inside Out: Plasters, Carvings and Drawings, Prestel, Munich, New York 1996, no.51 (terracotta illus. in colour p.113)
The terracotta from which the bronze was cast was gifted to The Henry Moore Foundation by the artist in 1977. Other casts are in the collections of Tate, London; the Art Museum at the University of Toronto and the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago.
This significant small-scale Family group was cast in bronze from a terracotta model Henry Moore made for Village College Impington, suggested by the architect Walter Gropius in the late 1930s. Postponed by the advent of War, Moore returned to the idea in 1944 when the commission was temporarily revived and began making note-book drawings of family groups from which he made a number of small maquettes. Moore was delighted in 1947 to receive a second public commission for a family group from John Newson, the Director of Education for Hertfordshire, for Barclay Secondary School, as it provided an opportunity to realise his ideas on the subject on a large scale. Having visited the site, Moore chose from his previous models on the theme, enlarging a terracotta maquette of 1945 from which the present work was cast.[1] Moore made four large bronze Family groups for the project during 1948–49, the main sculpture situated at Barclay School, Stevenage, with the other three in the collections of the Tate Gallery, London; the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the private collection of Nelson Rockefeller, New York.
This poignant bronze is very close to the large final work, differing only in the head of the male: ‘In the small version the split head of the man gives a vitality and interest necessary to the composition, particularly as all three heads have only slight indications of features. When it came to the life-size version, the figures each became obviously human and related to each other and the split head of the man became impossible, for it was so unlike the woman and the child.’[2]
The distinction between the male and female in the present work is also emphasised in the representation of their legs. In earlier three figure family groups the fabric lying across their thighs unites the parents, here it is wrapped tightly around the mother’s lower limbs while the father’s are left unconstrained. The gaps between his legs and hers reveal the opening beneath the bench which had in previous versions been solid. The increase in light and space around the figures emphasises their greater flexibility as they twist towards their child, their arms interlocking, ‘forming a knot between them, tying the three into a family unity.’[3]
HENRY MOORE OM CH
Castleford, Yorkshire 1898 - 1986 Much Hadham, Herts
The seventh child of Raymond Spencer and Mary Moore, Henry was born in Castleford, Yorkshire in 1898. His paternal great-grandfather was of Irish origin, but his father and grandfather were born in Yorkshire where, for two or three generations, they worked the land or went down the mines. At the age of twelve Moore obtained a grant to study at the Grammar School in Castleford where he was inspired by his art teacher to pursue a career in the arts. In 1916 he began to teach, but by February 1917 he had joined the army and left to fight in
France.
After being wounded in action in November 1917 at the battle of Cambrai, Moore was excused from active service. He returned to England, where he became a physical education instructor in the army. At the end of the war, Moore received a veteran’s grant to study at Leeds School of Art and in 1921 he joined a course at the Royal College of Art in London. A further grant enabled him to travel extensively from 1925, visiting Rome, Florence, Venice, Ravenna and Paris, where he met Picasso, Giacometti, Ernst, Eluard and Breton among others.
On returning from his travels Moore was appointed Professor of Sculpture at the Royal College of Art where he worked two days a week until 1931, as well as teaching at the Chelsea School of Art until 1939. He was appointed an Official War Artist during the Second World War from 1940–1942 for which he made a series of drawings of people sheltering in the London Underground, as well as studies of miners at the coal face. In these pictures he frequently used waercolour over wax crayon.
After the war Moore enjoyed a great deal of success, with his works receiving critical acclaim all around the world. He executed many major commissions for museums, public institutions, private collectors and municipal buildings and as a result he became one of the most famous British artists of the twentieth century.
At the beginning of the 1970s Moore created a foundation, the aim of which was to promote public awareness of sculpture and to protect his own work for the future. Located in his home village of Much Hadham, Hertfordshire, the foundation houses a library, archives and a collection of drawings, prints, maquettes and sculptures by the artist. Heavily influenced by the work of Michelangelo, Moore created monumental works in marble, stone and bronze and was enthralled by the theme of the family, and in particular the mother and child. His unique oeuvre draws inspiration from prehistoric, archaic, Egyptian, African, Mexican and Roman sculpture.
Throughout his career he was noted for his output of graphic art – drawings, watercolours, etchings and lithographs which were not necessarily related to individual sculptures.
[1] The terracotta maquette was given by the artist to The Henry Moore Foundation in 1977.
[2] The artist cited in C Allemand-Cosneau, M Fath & D Mitchinson (ed.), Henry Moore: From the Inside Out, Plasters, Carvings and Drawings, Prestel, Munich 1996, p.113.
[3] The artist cited in J Hedgecoe and H Moore, Henry Spencer Moore, Simon and Schuster, New York 1968, p.177.
