Henry Moore

Private Collection
Waddington Galleries, London (acquired from the above in 1978)
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1995

Ionel Jianou, Henry Moore, Paris, 1968, no. 226, edition catalogued p. 74
David Sylvester (ed.), Henry Moore, Sculpture and Drawings, London, 1969, vol. I, no. 239, edition catalogued p. 15
Giulio Carlo Argan, Henry Moore, New York, 1971, no. 77, illustration of another cast

Rich green patina. There is a very small area of verdigris in the drapery folds on the lap of the female figure. This work is in very good condition.
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One of the key subjects of Henry Moore’s art, the theme of a family group was particularly prominent in his sculpture during the years 1944-48. As the artist explained: ‘The idea of the family group crystallised before the war. Henry Morris, the Director of Education for Cambridgeshire, asked me to do a sculpture for the Impington Village College, the first of the modern schools in England. It had been designed by Walter Gropius. As the College was going to be used for adult education as well, the idea of connecting parents and children came into my mind. I think that the first gamily group drawings and maquettes were done in 1935-6, although I didn’t actually make the full-size sculpture until later’ (in Henry Moore & John Hedgecoe, Henry Moore, London, 1986, p. 163).

 

Although the project was never realised due to lack of funding, the artist carried on exploring this theme in numerous drawings, most of them made in bomb shelters in London during the Second World War. The series reflected both Moore’s wish for peace and harmony in the post-war world and his expression of happiness during the birth of his daughter Mary. The artist said of this series: ‘The family group ideas were all generated by drawings: and that was perhaps because the whole family group idea was so close to one as a person; we were just going to have our first child Mary, and it was an obsession’ (quoted in Julie Summers, Henry Moore, From the Inside Out, Munich, 1996).

 

The present work is a model for the monumental bronze of the same title, executed in 1948-49 (Alan Bowness (ed.), Henry Moore, Complete Sculpture, London, 1986, vol. II, no. 269; figs. 1 & 2), all five casts of which are in public collections: Tate Gallery in London, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, Hakone Museum in Japan and the Barclay School in Stevenage, England. Moore also executed a terracotta version of this work, now in The Henry Moore Foundation in Much Hadham, England.