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Lot Essay
Mother and Child is a rare, early interpretation of a theme which Moore was to explore throughout his life. Some fifty years after having carved this work he was to reflect "there are two particular motives or subjects which I have constantly used in my sculpture...they are the Reclining Figure idea and the Mother and Child idea. Perhaps of the two the Mother and Child has been the more fundamental obsession" (ed. D. Mitchinson, Henry Moore, Sculpture with Comments by the Artist, London 1981, p. 90).
Following his arrival in London as a student in 1921, Moore had become fascinated with non-Western art, mainly as a result of his numerous visits to the British Museum. Mother and Child encapsulates his tender interpretation of the radical forms and voluptous rhythm of the artefacts which struck him so forcibly as he wandered around the Museum. He wrote to his Leeds friend Jocelyn Horner "Yesterday I spent my second afternoon in the ...Museum with the Egyptian and Assyrian sculptures - An hour before closing time I tore myself away from these to do a little exploring and found - in the Ethnographical Gallery - the ecstatically fine negro sculptures - and then just on closing time I discovered the print room containing the Japanese things - a joy to come" (quoted in exh. cat, Henry Moore Early Carvings 1920-1940, Leeds 1982, p. 24).
Mother and Child was chosen for inclusion in Moore's controversial second one-man exhibition, held at the Leicester Galleries in 1931. The exhibition provoked hostile criticism, despite Moore having already established a reputation as one of England's leading artists and having exhibited at the Venice Biennale the year before. However, in his introduction to the catalogue, Jacob Epstein declared "Before these works I ponder in silence...If sculpture is truly 'the relation of masses', here is the example for all to see...Forces from within the works project upon our minds what the sculptor wishes to convey. Here is something to start the unthinking out of their complacency".
Criticism of the more abstract works on view fuelled the controversy which was to lead to Moore resigning from his teaching post at the Royal College of Art. Nonetheless, one of his pupils, Frederick Francke, acquired Mother and Child from the Leicester Galleries and the work was to remain in his family until ten years ago.
Following his arrival in London as a student in 1921, Moore had become fascinated with non-Western art, mainly as a result of his numerous visits to the British Museum. Mother and Child encapsulates his tender interpretation of the radical forms and voluptous rhythm of the artefacts which struck him so forcibly as he wandered around the Museum. He wrote to his Leeds friend Jocelyn Horner "Yesterday I spent my second afternoon in the ...Museum with the Egyptian and Assyrian sculptures - An hour before closing time I tore myself away from these to do a little exploring and found - in the Ethnographical Gallery - the ecstatically fine negro sculptures - and then just on closing time I discovered the print room containing the Japanese things - a joy to come" (quoted in exh. cat, Henry Moore Early Carvings 1920-1940, Leeds 1982, p. 24).
Mother and Child was chosen for inclusion in Moore's controversial second one-man exhibition, held at the Leicester Galleries in 1931. The exhibition provoked hostile criticism, despite Moore having already established a reputation as one of England's leading artists and having exhibited at the Venice Biennale the year before. However, in his introduction to the catalogue, Jacob Epstein declared "Before these works I ponder in silence...If sculpture is truly 'the relation of masses', here is the example for all to see...Forces from within the works project upon our minds what the sculptor wishes to convey. Here is something to start the unthinking out of their complacency".
Criticism of the more abstract works on view fuelled the controversy which was to lead to Moore resigning from his teaching post at the Royal College of Art. Nonetheless, one of his pupils, Frederick Francke, acquired Mother and Child from the Leicester Galleries and the work was to remain in his family until ten years ago.