拍品專文
Although the theme of the mother and child recurs throughout Moore's oeuvre, the birth of his daughter Mary in 1946 provided the direct impetus for the family group series. In 1946 and 1947, Moore produced a number of versions of the family group in bronze, stone, and terracotta, each differing in size and in degree of naturalism. Working the surfaces of his sculptures after casting, he was even able to vary the expression of different examples of the same composition. All the versions of the family group, however, reveal the artist's long-standing interest in the link between parent and child and his readiness to enter into a community such as the family. As Moore himself once wrote, "To be an artist is to believe in life, and this includes community life..." (W. Grohmann, op. cit., p. 142)
In his monograph on Moore, Will Grohmann comments upon this particular version of the family group:
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. (Ibid., pp. 141-142)
In his monograph on Moore, Will Grohmann comments upon this particular version of the family group:
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. (Ibid., pp. 141-142)