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Lot Essay
The Family Groups are Henry Moore’s most socially-minded sculptures, and for this reason have become for many people the introduction to the sculptor’s art and his most beloved works. He conceived this theme for a public commission related to the building of new towns and schools in Britain before the Second World War. It was not until 1944, however, during the height of the war, that it appeared funding for the commission might finally become available. Moore modeled the initial series of eight Family Groups in terracotta. The end of the war in Europe, in May 1945, prompted Moore to create six more models, and in 1947 he enlarged three of these terracottas, including the one pertaining to the present sculpture, to produce the first bronze editions.
Moore intended that the Family Group sculptures celebrate the nation’s return to the peacetime well-being and the pleasures of family life. They project a renewed emphasis on fundamental humanist values, while providing an aesthetic model for community spirit and co-operation, with the promise of progressive social services for all. These sculptures rejoice not only in the birth of a child—Moore’s daughter Mary, his only child, was born in 1946—but in the creation of new young families as well. After a half-decade of wartime casualties and a low birth rate, to once again become fruitful and multiply was a crucial requirement for the economic and social revival of Britain during the post-war era.
Moore eventually opted for the iconic simplicity of a triadic configuration when he chose to enlarge two of his three-figure family maquettes to life-size for installation at schools in Stevenage (1948-1949; Bowness, no. 269) and Harlow (1954-1955, no. 364). The four-figure groups, however, outnumber the three-member families almost two to one among the terracotta models. The combination of both parents plus two children, one of each sex, was capable of generating more varied arrangements and a wider range of emotional expression.
Referring to the present sculpture, Will Grohmann wrote, "This Family Group is rather far removed from the others in its formal aspects... The man's chest is an open hollow; the woman's right breast is negatively modeled, 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” (op. cit., 1960, p. 142).
Moore intended that the Family Group sculptures celebrate the nation’s return to the peacetime well-being and the pleasures of family life. They project a renewed emphasis on fundamental humanist values, while providing an aesthetic model for community spirit and co-operation, with the promise of progressive social services for all. These sculptures rejoice not only in the birth of a child—Moore’s daughter Mary, his only child, was born in 1946—but in the creation of new young families as well. After a half-decade of wartime casualties and a low birth rate, to once again become fruitful and multiply was a crucial requirement for the economic and social revival of Britain during the post-war era.
Moore eventually opted for the iconic simplicity of a triadic configuration when he chose to enlarge two of his three-figure family maquettes to life-size for installation at schools in Stevenage (1948-1949; Bowness, no. 269) and Harlow (1954-1955, no. 364). The four-figure groups, however, outnumber the three-member families almost two to one among the terracotta models. The combination of both parents plus two children, one of each sex, was capable of generating more varied arrangements and a wider range of emotional expression.
Referring to the present sculpture, Will Grohmann wrote, "This Family Group is rather far removed from the others in its formal aspects... The man's chest is an open hollow; the woman's right breast is negatively modeled, 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” (op. cit., 1960, p. 142).