Henry Moore, O.M., C.H.

The Leicester Galleries, London, where acquired by Wilfrid A. Evill August 1948 for £42.0.0, by whom bequeathed to Honor Frost in 1963

London, The Leicester Galleries, Artists of Fame & Promise, Part II, August 1948, cat. no.140;
London, The Home of Wilfrid A. Evill, Contemporary Art Society, Pictures, Drawings, Water Colours and Sculpture, April - May 1961, (part III- section 2) cat. no.18;
Brighton, Brighton Art Gallery, The Wilfrid Evill Memorial Exhibition, June - August 1965, cat. no.112 (as Women Winding Wool - The Fates).

Ann Garrould (ed.), Henry Moore, Complete Drawings 1940-1949, Vol. 3, Lund Humphries, Aldershot, 2001, HMF 2394a, illustrated p.255.

The following condition report has been compiled by Jane McAusland FIIC, Conservator and Restorer of Art on Paper: Support Moore has used a sheet of thick, strong paper to support this watercolour, which is hinged into a mount. It is not laid down. Artist pinholes show at all four corners. The condition of the paper is good. Medium The condition of the medium is also good with no apparent fading. Note: This work was viewed outside studio conditions. For enquiries about the present work please contact the department on +44 (0)20 7293 6424.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
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The present work sees Moore draw on a number of themes within his own work, both painted and sculpted, that had surfaced through the earlier part of the 1940s. The large-scale presentation of relatively naturalistic figures has a resonance with both the 'shelter' drawings and the 'figures in a setting' drawings that followed them, and the influence of the 'family group' sculptures in their domesticity and relationships between the figures can also be traced. Over all these, though, sits the increasing sense of the classical that imbued much of Moore's work during these years.

The subject itself is simple; two women, draped in apparently heavy materials, sit almost facing each other on small bench-like stools. One holds her hands out for the other to wind a bright yellow woollen thread into a ball. Both seem relatively engaged by this activity, although the left hand figure is perhaps more inclined to reverie. The board floor suggests they are placed in an interior, although the space indicates little more than walls behind them and whose placement gives a feeling of containment, perhaps almost confinement.

The apparent domesticity of the subject matter is very much in keeping with Moore's drawings of 1945-46, where images of mothers bathing children, figures reading or knitting or simply sitting together are frequent. However, for most of these the everyday feeling is plain, and thus suggests a link to the 'family group' sculptures of the same period. Activities such as reading and knitting also feature in the 'shelter' drawings, and like his treatment of the subjects in the 1940-42 period, Moore seems throughout the decade to be able to differentiate within each group between the drawings which appear to offer a simple rendition of a subject as opposed to those which take on a more monumental quality. Contemporary observers noted a growing element of classical feeling in Moore's work at this time, 'the fateful air of antique tragedy' (Kenneth Clark, 'Henry Moore: A Note on his Drawings', Buchholz Gallery, New York 1943), and indeed his own taste towards Greek tragedy was to be amply displayed in the illustrations he produced for the published version of Edward Sackville-West's play The Rescue, based on Homer's Odyssey. Like T.S. Eliot, whose work Moore very much admired, his figures seem balanced between the real world and another darker and larger plane. For The Rescue Moore produced several images of Penelope and Eurynome at the loom, each day's work being carefully unpicked at night to delay the completion of the weaving, and of course the Greek imagery of the Moirae, The Fates, spinning out the destiny of mankind, was a powerful one. Within the context of the unfolding of the post-WWII political map and the changes and developments of society in those years, such a subject as this seems replete with such intimations. Indeed, Moore returned to this same subject in 1948, culminating in The Three Fates (AG 48.27, Private Collection), a direct presentation of Lachesis, Clotho and Atropos holding the fragile thread of life.