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The Tragic Fall
“In the Falling Warrior sculpture I wanted a figure that was still alive. The pose in the first maquette was that of a completely dead figure and so I altered it to make the action that of a figure in the act of falling and the shield became a support for the warrior emphasising the dramatic moment that precedes death.” – Henry Moore

Drawing inspiration from the heroes of Greek mythology, Henry Moore’s Falling Warrior portrays a wounded soldier on the brink of death. Unlike the triumphant classic hero, Moore’s warrior falls to his demise, though he did not fall without a fight. His body hovers just above the ground, drawing on his final reserves of strength before the ultimate collapse. Moore captured the agony of battle without an abundance of details; rather, he stripped the human form down to its most essential shapes, and in doing so achieved a compelling interplay between figuration and abstraction.

Moore sculpted this warrior with an intimacy that suggests deep personal experience. Indeed, Moore was impacted by both World Wars. Hired by the British government in 1941 to serve as an Official War Artist, he captured the images of human suffering on the streets and in the shelters of London. In addition, he had served with the British army in France in 1917, and was directly affected by World War II when a bomb raid destroyed his London studio. It was this informed perspective that Moore brought to Falling Warrior, the still deeply resonant personal tragedy of combat.