Henry Moore

Willy & Marina Staehelin-Peyer, Zurich

Thence by descent to the present owner

David Sylvester (ed.), Henry Moore. Complete Sculpture, London, 1957, vol. 1, no. 237, the terracotta catalogued

Ionel Jianou, Henry Moore, Paris, 1968, no. 224, the terracotta catalogued p. 74

David Mitchinson (ed.), Henry Moore, London, 1981, no. 177, another cast illustrated in colour p. 94 (as dating from 1944 and from an edition of 8)

John Hedgecoe, Henry Moore. A Monumental Vision, Cologne, 2005, no. 238, another cast illustrated p. 211

This work is recorded in the archives of the Henry Moore Foundation under no. LH 237. 

 

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’ (quoted in J. Hedgecoe, op. cit., p. 163).

 

Discussing this important series in the context of the artist’s œuvre, Will Grohmann wrote: ‘With the Family Group theme Moore regained his freedom since the commissions received were less restricting. He started working on these groups at about the same time as the Madonna. In the years 1944 to 1947 he produced a number of larger and smaller variations in stone, bronze and terracotta, differing considerably from one another, being both naturalistic and non-naturalistic, though never as abstract as the Reclining Figures. The theme does not hem him in, but demands a certain readiness to enter into the meaning of a community such as a family’ (W. Grohmann, The Art of Henry Moore, London, 1960, p. 141).