Henry Moore

Richard Rodgers, New York (acquired directly from the artist circa 1950)
By descent from the above in 1979

Herbert Read, Henry Moore: Sculpture and Drawings, New York, 1949, no. 70h, illustration of the terracotta version n.p.
David Sylvester, ed., Henry Moore. Complete Sculpture, vol. 1, London, 1957, no. 230, illustration of the terracotta version p. 144
John Hedgecoe & Henry Moore, Henry Moore, New York, 1968, illustration of another cast p. 176

This work is in excellent original condition. Attractive golden brown patina. Work is currently screwed to a black stone base at one point on underside. Some very minor pindot accretions in crevices, otherwise fine.
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Family as a unit was one of the key subjects of Henry Moore’s oeuvre and a theme that he poignantly explored 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 family group drawings and maquettes were done in 1935-6, although I didn’t actually make the full-size sculpture until later" (quoted in John Hedgecoe & Henry Moore, op. cit., p. 163).

Family Group was acquired directly from the artist by Richard Rodgers, the American composer of more than nine hundred songs and forty-three Broadway musicals, known best for his partnerships with lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II. While Rodgers and Hammerstein were revolutionizing musical form with the groundbreaking hits Oklahoma!, The King and I and The Sound of Music, Rodgers was collecting revolutionary works of other artistic forms. He amassed an unrivaled collection of modern masterpieces, ranging from emblematically Cubist Pablo Picasso paintings to still lifes by Henri Matisse and Pierre Bonnard. The present work is one of the select few works within the collection retained by the Rodgers family until today.

Two casts of this work are held in public collections: at the Dallas Museum of Art and at the Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.