Reclining figure

细节

Henry Moore (1898-1986)
Reclining figure
signed and numbered 'Moore 1/6' (on the side of the base)
bronze with dark brown patina
10¼ in. (26 cm.) high; 21 1/8in. (53.5 cm.) long
Executed in lead in 1931 and cast in a numbered bronze edition of six, including one artist's proof, in 1963.

来源

Mr. and Mrs Frederick Zimmerman, New York.

出版

H. Read, Henry Moore: Sculpture and Drawings, New York, 1949, no. 100 (the lead version illustrated).
W. Grohmann, The Art of Henry Moore, New York, 1960, no. 20 (the lead version illustrated).
D. Sylvester, Ed., Henry Moore, Sculpture and Drawings 1921-1948, vol. I, London, 1969, no. 101 (the lead version illustrated p. 76).
R. Melville, Henry Moore Sculpture and Drawings 1921-1969, London, 1970, no. 61 (the lead version illustrated).
H. Moore & J. Hedgecoe, Henry Moore, My Ideas, Inspiration and Life as an Artist, London, 1986, pp. 74-75 (another cast illustrated).
R. Berthoud, The Life of Henry Moore, London, 1987, fig. 44 (the lead version illustrated).
D. Mitchinson, Ed., Henry Moore Sculpture, with comments by the artist, Barcelona, 1988, no. 67 (another cast illustrated in colour p. 52).

注意事项

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.

拍品专文

One of Moore's earliest works intended for casting in metal, Reclining figure, 1931 is a significant formal departure from his massive, totemic sculptures inspired by Aztec and Mayan carvings. Clearly informed by the Surrealist biomorphic shapes of Pablo Picasso's beach paintings of the same year, as well as the sinuous elongated forms of Max Ernst, Moore stretched and twisted the human form, opening up the torso of the figure to expose what appears to be the rib cage, the first instance of the pierced form which was later to become the hallmark of Moore. Such formal daring could not be achieved within the technique of stone carving, so Moore explored the more elastic potential of lead: 'The lead figures came at a stage in my career when I wanted to experiment with thinner forms than stone could give and, of course, in metal you can have very thin forms. So this thinness that one could make and this desire for making space became something that I wanted to do. Yet I couldn't afford in those days to make plasters and have them cast into bronze becasue I would have to send them and pay a huge fee to the bronze foundry. Whereas lead I could melt on the kitchen stove and pour into a mould myself. In fact I ruined my wife's saucepans beacuse the lead was so heavy that it bent the handles and the pans were sometimes put out of shape. But I could mould it myself and do the casting myself and it was soft enough when cast to work on it and give a refinement; I could cut it down thinner, and finish the surface, so for me lead was both economically possible and physically more realiable.' (Henry Moore quoted in D. Mitchinson, Henry Moore Sculpture with Comments by the Artist, Barcelona 1981, p. 75).