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Lot Essay
Executed in 1940, Henry Moore’s Standing Figures was created during the opening months of the Blitz, when London endured sustained German bombing raids and Moore’s Hampstead home and studio were damaged. Prior to the outbreak of war, drawing had often served as a means of rapidly recording ideas for sculpture. However, deprived of the space and materials, Moore turned with renewed intensity to paper, discovering that drawing was not simply a preparatory tool, but a medium capable of responding directly to the realities of contemporary life. The present work belongs to this extraordinary period in which drawing emerged as an autonomous means of expression for Moore.
Standing Figures’ genesis was concurrent with the experiences that would lead to Moore’s celebrated Shelter Drawings. On 11th September 1940, travelling home through the Underground, Moore encountered Londoners gathered beneath the city as they sought refuge from the bombs. He later recalled being struck by ‘so many rows of reclining figures’ and by ‘people who were obviously strangers to one another forming tight little intimate groups’ (S. Barassi, exhibition catalogue, Henry Moore Drawings: The Art of Seeing, Much Hadham, Henry Moore Foundation, 2019, p. 16). Such scenes provided Moore with the powerful subject through which, in the words of Sebastiano Barassi, he sought to move beyond the ‘mere chronicling of events’ towards ‘an empathetic expression of the times’ (loc. cit.).
Standing Figures’ sequence of six elongated figures stands in two closely grouped formations, their bodies reduced to contours and hollowed interiors. While the figures remain distinct, their proximity creates an impression of collective presence. Darker shadowing behind the figures constructs an illusion of partially articulated forms receding into the background. This ambiguous suggestion of further bodies beyond this principal group, creates what you can imagine to be an infinite expanse. Unlike the reclining figures of Moore’s Shelter Drawings, which directly evoke the civilians gathered on the platforms and tunnels of the London Underground, the present work offers no explicit narrative. Instead, its anonymous protagonists are suspended between figuration and abstraction.
This exploration of the upright human figure was closely connected to Moore’s sculptural concerns at the time. He was preoccupied with resolving the technical and formal problems posed by standing figures, particularly the question of how hollowed forms might become self-supporting without sacrificing their stability. The bodies in Standing Figures represent a significant stage in this investigation. Progressing from the strings Moore had previously used to articulate his figures, their interconnected forms anticipate sculptural solutions he would develop further over the following decade.
Standing Figures reflects Moore’s ongoing pursuit of a universal expression of the human experience during this time. The clustered bodies suggest both separation and solidarity, individuality and collective endurance. Executed during a period when war forced Moore to rethink both his materials and his artistic purpose, the present work reveals his formal investigations and the growing humanism within his work. Standing Figures is a revealing drawing which captures the moment when the disruptions of war opened a new and decisive avenue within Moore’s art.
The first owner of the present drawing was the architect F.R.S. Yorke (1906-1962), one of the leading champions of Modern Movement in British architecture. A founding member of the MARS group in 1933, Yorke was instrumental in introducing European modernism before a British audience, most notably through his influential book The Modern House. In 1935 he formed a partnership with Marcel Breuer, the former Bauhaus master who had recently arrived in London, before establishing the architectural practise Yorke Rosenberg Mardall with Eugene Rosenberg and Cyril Mardall. Together they produced efficient and functional designs for schools, hospitals and civic buildings, including Gatwick Airport, shaping and significantly contributing to the architecture of post-war Britain. Among Yorke’s most celebrated early commissions was the Barclay School in Stevenage in 1950, one of the first secondary schools built in Britain’s first New Town. The school received an architectural award at the Festival of Britain in 1951. The connection is particularly resonant as Moore’s Family Group, 1948-49, stood at the entrance to the Barclay School where it was installed as part of the post-war vision of art and architecture in dialogue. Yorke’s ownership of the present drawing therefore uniquely creates a compelling link between two works that embody the close relationship between art and architecture in post-war Britain.
Standing Figures was acquired by Mrs Nancy Elizabeth (Betty) Jayne from Marlborough Fine Art, in 1975. Betty was born in South London, the daughter of an engineering journalist, J. Foster Petrie. During the Second World War, Betty worked with the code breakers at Bletchley Park, then in administrative positions at the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Association of Special Libraries.
In 1971, she married Oliver Jayne, a barrister with a career in the construction industry. Together, they bought a house in Sutton, Surrey and started collecting 20th century British and Irish art, which they acquired from leading London galleries. Their collection included work by Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Barbara Hepworth (see lot 5 in the Modern British and Irish Art Evening sale), Henry Moore, John Piper (see lot 152 in the Modern British and Irish Art Day sale) and Jack B. Yeats (see lots 135 and 137 in the Modern British and Irish Art Day sale). Betty continued to live in the same house surrounded by the art she loved until her death at 102.
Standing Figures’ genesis was concurrent with the experiences that would lead to Moore’s celebrated Shelter Drawings. On 11th September 1940, travelling home through the Underground, Moore encountered Londoners gathered beneath the city as they sought refuge from the bombs. He later recalled being struck by ‘so many rows of reclining figures’ and by ‘people who were obviously strangers to one another forming tight little intimate groups’ (S. Barassi, exhibition catalogue, Henry Moore Drawings: The Art of Seeing, Much Hadham, Henry Moore Foundation, 2019, p. 16). Such scenes provided Moore with the powerful subject through which, in the words of Sebastiano Barassi, he sought to move beyond the ‘mere chronicling of events’ towards ‘an empathetic expression of the times’ (loc. cit.).
Standing Figures’ sequence of six elongated figures stands in two closely grouped formations, their bodies reduced to contours and hollowed interiors. While the figures remain distinct, their proximity creates an impression of collective presence. Darker shadowing behind the figures constructs an illusion of partially articulated forms receding into the background. This ambiguous suggestion of further bodies beyond this principal group, creates what you can imagine to be an infinite expanse. Unlike the reclining figures of Moore’s Shelter Drawings, which directly evoke the civilians gathered on the platforms and tunnels of the London Underground, the present work offers no explicit narrative. Instead, its anonymous protagonists are suspended between figuration and abstraction.
This exploration of the upright human figure was closely connected to Moore’s sculptural concerns at the time. He was preoccupied with resolving the technical and formal problems posed by standing figures, particularly the question of how hollowed forms might become self-supporting without sacrificing their stability. The bodies in Standing Figures represent a significant stage in this investigation. Progressing from the strings Moore had previously used to articulate his figures, their interconnected forms anticipate sculptural solutions he would develop further over the following decade.
Standing Figures reflects Moore’s ongoing pursuit of a universal expression of the human experience during this time. The clustered bodies suggest both separation and solidarity, individuality and collective endurance. Executed during a period when war forced Moore to rethink both his materials and his artistic purpose, the present work reveals his formal investigations and the growing humanism within his work. Standing Figures is a revealing drawing which captures the moment when the disruptions of war opened a new and decisive avenue within Moore’s art.
The first owner of the present drawing was the architect F.R.S. Yorke (1906-1962), one of the leading champions of Modern Movement in British architecture. A founding member of the MARS group in 1933, Yorke was instrumental in introducing European modernism before a British audience, most notably through his influential book The Modern House. In 1935 he formed a partnership with Marcel Breuer, the former Bauhaus master who had recently arrived in London, before establishing the architectural practise Yorke Rosenberg Mardall with Eugene Rosenberg and Cyril Mardall. Together they produced efficient and functional designs for schools, hospitals and civic buildings, including Gatwick Airport, shaping and significantly contributing to the architecture of post-war Britain. Among Yorke’s most celebrated early commissions was the Barclay School in Stevenage in 1950, one of the first secondary schools built in Britain’s first New Town. The school received an architectural award at the Festival of Britain in 1951. The connection is particularly resonant as Moore’s Family Group, 1948-49, stood at the entrance to the Barclay School where it was installed as part of the post-war vision of art and architecture in dialogue. Yorke’s ownership of the present drawing therefore uniquely creates a compelling link between two works that embody the close relationship between art and architecture in post-war Britain.
Standing Figures was acquired by Mrs Nancy Elizabeth (Betty) Jayne from Marlborough Fine Art, in 1975. Betty was born in South London, the daughter of an engineering journalist, J. Foster Petrie. During the Second World War, Betty worked with the code breakers at Bletchley Park, then in administrative positions at the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Association of Special Libraries.
In 1971, she married Oliver Jayne, a barrister with a career in the construction industry. Together, they bought a house in Sutton, Surrey and started collecting 20th century British and Irish art, which they acquired from leading London galleries. Their collection included work by Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Barbara Hepworth (see lot 5 in the Modern British and Irish Art Evening sale), Henry Moore, John Piper (see lot 152 in the Modern British and Irish Art Day sale) and Jack B. Yeats (see lots 135 and 137 in the Modern British and Irish Art Day sale). Betty continued to live in the same house surrounded by the art she loved until her death at 102.