One of the most significant British artists of the twentieth century, Henry Moore’s reputation as a leading avant-garde artist took off in the 1930s, leading to his recruitment as an official war artist in 1939; and in 1948, his place on the world stage was cemented by his exhibition at the 24^th Venice Biennale at which he was awarded the International Sculpture Prize.

In his early career, Moore’s sculptures focused on key themes, those of the mother and child and the reclining figure. In the 50s and 60s, Moore was turning to new ways to express his artistic vision, and began focusing on the fluidity of form and the manipulation of internal and external space which he had begun exploring in the 1930s with sculptures such as Three Points, 1939-40, held at the Tate, London.

Maquette for Oval with Points, is a quintessential Moore sculpture of the late 1960s, paring back sculpture to its most simplistic form and implying fluidity and movement through the combination of smooth curves and pointed elements. At its centre, two points appear to stretch towards one another across an almost anthropomorphic void, reminiscent of his more abstract figures of mother and child. Here, he also explores the possibilities of static sculpture to evoke the effect of movement in space.

Full scale examples of this form are housed in collections worldwide, including Princeton University and The Columbus Museum of Art in the United States; Kunsthalle Bielefeld in Germany; The Hong Kong Land Company, Hong Kong; and The Municipality of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.