HENRY MOORE | RECLINING FIGURE: SNAKE

Stephen Mazoh, New York, from whom acquired by Curtis and Margaret Marshall in 1968

Their sale, Sotheby's New York, 7th November 2012, lot 105, where acquired by the present owner

John Hedgecoe (ed.), Henry Moore, Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, London, 1968, illustrated pp.152-153 (another cast);

Franco Russoli and David Mitchinson, Henry Moore Sculpture, Macmillan, London, 1981, cat. no.151, p.86, illustrated (another cast);

Alan Bowness (ed.), Henry Moore Complete Sculpture 1980-86, Vol. 6, Lund Humphries, London, 1999, Addenda to Volume 1 1921-48, cat. no.208a, illustrated p.31 (another cast).

London, Royal Academy of Arts, Henry Moore, 16th September - 11th December 1988, cat. no.39, illustrated p.80 (another cast);

Dallas, Dallas Museum of Art, Henry Moore: Sculpting in the 20th Century, 25th February 2001 - 27th January 2002 (another cast), with tour to Museum of Fine Art, San Francisco; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington;

Much Hadham, The Henry Moore Foundation, Henry Moore: War and Utility, 1st April 2001 - 30th September 2002 (another cast);

Orońsko, Polish Sculpture Centre, Power of Nature. Henry Moore in Poland, 30th September 2018 - 27th January 2019 (Henry Moore Foundation cast), with tour to National Museum, Wrocław; and  National Museum, Kraków.

'Moore’s figures, of course, represent nothing but themselves, but are made to look as if they themselves had been shaped by nature’s energy. They seem to be weathered, eroded, tunneled-into by the action of wind and water ... Moore’s reclining figures are not supine; they prop themselves up, are potentially active. Hence the affinity with river-gods: the idea is not simply that of a body subjected to the flow of nature’s forces, but of one in which those forces are harnessed' (David Sylvester, Henry Moore, (exh. cat.), Tate Gallery, London, 1968, p.5).

The present work is registered with the Henry Moore Foundation as LH 208a, and is sold together with a corresponding letter from the HMF.