Lot Essay
The birth of Henry Moore's daughter in 1946 served as a direct impetus for the family group series.
With the Family Group theme Moore regained his freedom since
the commissions he received were less restricting. He started
work 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 it demands a certain readiness to enter into the meaning of a community such as the family.
'To be an artist is to believe in life,' Moore writes, 'and this
includes community life....' The group of the parents with two children, one standing and one sitting, is closed and non- naturalistic; Moore executed it in bronze and terracotta; in the bronze version it looks tender and soft, in the terracotta hard and rough. Since the artist usually works the surface after casting, he is able to vary the expressions of the different examples of one and the same composition considerably.
This Family Group is rather far removed from the others in its
formal aspects. The man's chest is an open hollow as in the
Reclining Figures in Buffalo and Wakefield; the woman's right
breast is negatively modelled, the left positively; the legs are
as rigid as the string-boards of a church pew. The boy standing
between his father's knees is statuesquely simplified, the child
sitting on his mother's lap is reaching with his left hand for her open breast, but the hand is lost in the bulk of the mother's body.
The expression of the group is archaic, mute; the human relationship between the four beings is expressed only through the convergent
attitude of the figures and through the alternations of solid shapes and hollows. The woman's hollow is fruitfulness, the man's is
spirit. His figure would culminate less consciously in the raised head, if the shoulders did not sit like the arch of a bridge over the broad opening of the chest. An indication of the position of man in Moore's oeuvre: he stands outside its center, and when
he does become part of it, it is as head of the family, king or
warrior. (W. Grohmann, op. cit., pp. 141-42)
Sir Alan Bowness, Director of the Henry Moore Foundation, will include this sculpture in the revised first volume of the Henry Moore catalogue raisonné.
With the Family Group theme Moore regained his freedom since
the commissions he received were less restricting. He started
work 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 it demands a certain readiness to enter into the meaning of a community such as the family.
'To be an artist is to believe in life,' Moore writes, 'and this
includes community life....' The group of the parents with two children, one standing and one sitting, is closed and non- naturalistic; Moore executed it in bronze and terracotta; in the bronze version it looks tender and soft, in the terracotta hard and rough. Since the artist usually works the surface after casting, he is able to vary the expressions of the different examples of one and the same composition considerably.
This Family Group is rather far removed from the others in its
formal aspects. The man's chest is an open hollow as in the
Reclining Figures in Buffalo and Wakefield; the woman's right
breast is negatively modelled, the left positively; the legs are
as rigid as the string-boards of a church pew. The boy standing
between his father's knees is statuesquely simplified, the child
sitting on his mother's lap is reaching with his left hand for her open breast, but the hand is lost in the bulk of the mother's body.
The expression of the group is archaic, mute; the human relationship between the four beings is expressed only through the convergent
attitude of the figures and through the alternations of solid shapes and hollows. The woman's hollow is fruitfulness, the man's is
spirit. His figure would culminate less consciously in the raised head, if the shoulders did not sit like the arch of a bridge over the broad opening of the chest. An indication of the position of man in Moore's oeuvre: he stands outside its center, and when
he does become part of it, it is as head of the family, king or
warrior. (W. Grohmann, op. cit., pp. 141-42)
Sir Alan Bowness, Director of the Henry Moore Foundation, will include this sculpture in the revised first volume of the Henry Moore catalogue raisonné.