HENRY MOORE (1898-1986)

Details

HENRY MOORE (1898-1986)

Upright Motive No. 5

bronze with green patina
Height: 84in. (213.4cm.)

Cast 1955-1956 in an edition of seven

Provenance

M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., New York (acquired from the artist)
Charles Rand Penney, Olcott, New York
James Goodman Gallery, New York
Albert White Gallery, Toronto

Literature

W. Grohmann, The Art of Henry Moore, New York, 1960, no. 158 (plaster version illustrated)
ed. A. Bowness, Henry Moore, Sculpture and Drawings, London, 1965, vol. 3 (1955-64), no. 383 (another cast illustrated, p. 212) J. Hedgcoe and H. Moore, Henry Moore, New York, 1968, p. 331 (another cast illustrated)
R. Melville, Henry Moore, New York, 1968, nos. xxii and 505 (plaster version illustrated, p. 212; another cast illustrated, p. 233) H. Seldis, Henry Moore in America, Los Angeles, 1973, pp. 149-151, no. 48 (another cast illustrated, p. 266)
D. Finn and K. Clark, Henry Moore: Sculpture and Environment, London, 1977, pp. 386-391 (another cast illustrated)
ed. D. Mitchinson, Henry Moore Sculpture, with comments by the artist, London, 1981, no. 270 (another cast illustrated, p. 135)

Exhibited

New York, M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., Henry Moore, March-April, 1962, no. 21 (illustrated)
Tucson, University of Arizona Art Gallery, Henry Moore: A Retrospective Exhibition of Sculpture and Drawings, Feb.-March, 1965 (illustrated)
Dallas, Valley House Gallery, Sculpture by Henry Moore, April, 1965, no. 20 (illustrated)
Little Rock, The Arkansas Arts Center, Drawings and Sculptures by Henry Moore, May-June, 1965, no. 20 (illustrated)
Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Henry Moore, Sept.-Oct., 1965, no. 117
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Henry Moore: 60 Years of his Art, May-Sept., 1983, p. 124 (illustrated)

Lot Essay

In 1955 Moore was asked to make a sculpture for the courtyard of a new building in Milan. He later recalled:

I visited the site and a lone Lombard poplar growing
behing the building convinced me that a vertical work
would act as the correct counterfoil to the horizontal
rhythm of the building. This idea grew ultimately
into the Upright Motives.

Back home in England I began a series of maquettes.
I started by balancing different forms one above the
other--with results rather like the North West American
totem poles... (ed. D. Mitchinson, op. cit.)

The series of five Upright Motives are complex visual metaphors and evoke many references. "Everchanging, they look like tomb stelae at one moment, at another like totem poles, they achieve a poignancy, like something still agonizing over its own existence, or they may appear triumphant, as though their life were already behind them and they are now resting in eternity." (W. Grohmann, op. cit., pp. 198 and 215)