Henry Moore
(England 1898–1986)
- Title
- Reclining figure: Angles
- Year
- 1980
- Media category
- Sculpture
- Materials used
- bronze, green patina
- Dimensions
-
113.3 x 219.6 x 156.8cm; 10.8cm bronze base
- Signature & date
- Signed back left corner on top of base, "Moore...". Not dated.
- Credit
- Purchased 1981
- Accession number
- 6.1981
- Copyright
- © The works are illustrated by kind permission of the Henry Moore Foundation and must not be reproduced or altered without prior consent from the Henry Moore Foundation
- Location
- Ground level
- Further information
Henry Moore described how, as a young boy, he rubbed hid mother's broad rheumatic back. This experience suggests a personal reading for the reclining woman, a form that has dominated Moore's sculpture. The maternal image - the mature woman chosen by Moore - has become an archetypal form, an earth mother to be impregnated by wind and rain. In situ, waiting and watching, she embodies instinctual alertness, the apprehension of danger. The sources are a mixture of primitive and classical forms, their reconciliation being a major theme in Moore's work. In this version of the figure, the horizontal arm balances the massive angular shoulder, and the frescoes of Giotto and Masaccio are an acknowledged source for the monumental forms and the taut drapery. As Moore once said: "If a work of sculpture has its own life and form, it will be alive and expansive, seeming larger than the stone or wood from which it is carved. It should always give the impression... of having grown organically, created by pressure from within." He described three fundamental poses: "One is standing, the other is seated and the third is lying down... of the three poses, the reclining figure gives the most freedom, compositionally and spatially. The seated figure has to have something to sit on. You can't free it from its pedestal. A reclining figure can recline on any surface. It is free and stable at the same time. It fits in with my belief that sculpture should be permanent, should last for eternity."
Art Gallery Handbook, 1994
- Bibliography (6)
-
Ewen McDonald (Australia) (Editor), The Art Gallery of New South Wales collections, Sydney, 1994, 171 (colour illus.).
Annabel Davie (Editor), Art Gallery of New South Wales Handbook, Domain, 1988, 56.
Alan Bowness (Editor), Henry Moore: sculpture 1921-1986, 1955-1988, vol 5, 675 (illus.).
Edmund Capon (England; Australia, b.1940) (Editor), Jan Meek (Australia) (Editor), Portrait of a Gallery, Sydney, 1984, 93 (colour illus.).
'Lost and found: a decade of sculpture at the Art Gallery of New South Wales' by Greame Sturgeon pg. 74-79, Art and Australia (Vol. 22, No. 1) Spring 1984, Spring 1984, 71.
Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874) (Author), Three years on: a selection of acquisitions 1978-1981, Sydney, 1981, 35 (colour illus.). cat.no. 4
- Exhibition history (1)
-
Three years on: Acquisitions 1978-81, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 15 Oct 1981–01 Dec 1981.
