Henry Moore

Mary Moore, London (the artist's daughter)
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1990

Paris, Didier Imbert Fine Art, Henry Moore intime, 1992, illustrated in the catalogue

David Sylvester (ed.), Henry Moore, Complete Sculptures 1921-1948, London, 1957, vol. I, no. 261, illustration of another cast
David Mitchinson, Henry Moore Sculpture, Paris, 1984, no. 182, illustration of another cast p. 96

Modulated light to dark green patina. There is some minor wear to the patina consistent with age and a shallow surface scratch to the right leg. The base section of the bronze is worn around the edges, with associated losses to the patina, and has a scratch to the centre top. This work is in good condition.
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In modelling Reclining Figure Henry Moore has encapsulated many of the most important motifs of his definitive aesthetic style. The curvaceous form of the sculpture recalls the blanketed sleeping figures Moore captured beneath the city of London in the Underground during the war and the sensuous lines of the model belie the complex arrangement of internal and external shapes. The key elements of his post-war abstraction can be discerned in the present work, particularily the use of striated surfaces and an extreme plasticity of form. The subject of the reclining figure is synonymous with Moore and was the most important motif of his œuvre, as he explained, 'The reclining figure gives the most freedom... A reclining figure can recline on any surface. It is free and stable at the same time. It fits in with my belief that sculpture should be permanent, should last for eternity. Also it has repose' (quoted in A. Wilkinson (ed.), Henry Moore: Writings and Conversations, Berkeley, 2002, p. 218).

The present work was conceived in 1946, a momentous year for Moore, foremost the birth of his daughter Mary who was the first owner of Reclining Figure; also his first great American retrospective was presented in New York, Chicago and San Francisco. It was also during the mid-1940s that he made crucial technical developments; he began to thoroughly explore the distinct qualities of bronze. The freedom gained from that malleable material meant that his sculptures assumed more spatially dynamic forms exemplified by the voided drum of the torso in the present work. Herbert Read suggests that 'the ideas could now be rendered without physical compromise into a ductile material' (H. Read, Henry Moore, London, 1965, p. 169).