NICHOLSON HEPWORTH MOORE
NICHOLSON HEPWORTH MOORE Exhibition opens Wednesday 10th October 33 New Bond Street, London W1S 2RS Tel: +44 (0)20 7499 4738 Fax: +44 (0)20 7495 3318 Email: paintings@richard-green.com
For Directors’ contact details, please see the back of the catalogue
www.richard-green.com
B E N N I C HOL SON
CONTENTS
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
1936 (gouache) Composition, 1938 1940 – 42 (two forms) Painted relief Nov 23-46 (Zennor landscape) Still life, 1946 September 1955 (Alcino) June 1960 (stone goblet) December 1963 (key circle)
BAR BAR A H E P WOR TH 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.
Curved Form on Red Head (Icon) Two Forms Maquette for Monolith Six Forms (2 x 3) Four Forms
H E NRY M OOR E 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.
Three Women in a Shelter Shelter Drawing: Seated Mother and Child Reclining Figures: Ideas for Stone Sculpture Stringed Figure [LH 207] Madonna and Child [LH 219] Family Group [LH 227] Family Group [LH 227] Family Group [LH 237] Family Group [LH 239] Family Group [LH 233] Reclining Figure (Maquette for Memorial Figure, Dartington Hall) [LH 242] Reclining Figure (Maquette for Reclining Figure, Cranbrook) [LH 249] Reclining Figure [LH 257] Working Model for Reclining Figure: Festival [LH 292] Reclining Figure No.5 [LH 333] Maquette for Figure on Steps [LH 426]
FOREWORD
Following the success of our opening exhibition of works by the much loved LS Lowry, we have decided to continue our exhibition programme with an equally powerful and popular display of works by the Modern British triumvirate Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore. These three titans of twentieth century art may have fought for recognition in the 1930s, but their Post-War reputations as the leading exponents of British Modernism are now confirmed, each representing their country at the Venice Biennale, at the Festival of Britain in 1951 and in numerous international public commissions and museum collections. This intimate exhibition of thirty works includes paintings, drawings and sculptures dating from 1936 to 1974, featuring examples of Nicholson’s early abstract paintings inspired by Piet Mondrian as well as his later large still lifes and carved reliefs. We have two exceptional examples of Henry Moore’s War-time shelter drawings and a unique collection of his best known, smallscale family group sculptures and reclining figures. We are also delighted to display our own collection of Barbara Hepworth sculptures demonstrating the versatility of the artist and the variety of her work including carved marble, cast bronze and cut metal. We are very grateful to Dr Lee Beard, Dr Sophie Bowness and Jennifer Hicks and Sebastiano Barassi at the Henry Moore Foundation for their assistance and expertise with the cataloguing of these important works.
We look forward to welcoming you to the exhibition.
Jonathan Green and Matthew Green
INTRODUCTION
Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore were the pioneers of British Modernism and, arguably, the three most influential British artists of the twentieth century. In Pre-War London they worked together, in the face of an indifferent public, to lay the foundations of contemporary English art. In Post-War Britain, though forging divergent paths, they each achieved and maintained critical recognition, remaining connected as representatives of their country on an international stage throughout the twentieth century and beyond. These exceptional individuals, united in the intensity of their vision as well as their ideals and aspirations, emerged at a pivotal moment in the history of modern British art. From 1932 to 1939, Nicholson, Hepworth and Moore were part of an international community of artists, ‘living and working together in Hampstead, as closely and intimately as the artists of Florence and Siena had lived and worked in the Quattrocento.’1 As a coherent group of unique artists working, writing and exhibiting together, they developed a common language, whose vocabulary of simplified, abstracted forms would echo through their subsequent careers. Each artist experimented with drawing, painting and carving and, to different degrees, continuously engaged with the limitations of abstraction and figuration, thus revealing both their progression as individuals and that of Modernism as a movement. Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth both hailed from Yorkshire and met early in their artistic careers, while studying at Leeds College of Art in 1920. Moore had known from an early age that he wanted to become a sculptor, but first he trained as a teacher (in accordance with his father’s wishes) before joining up in 1917. He briefly resumed teaching in 1919, having been injured at the Battle of Cambrai and demobilised early. His art teacher at Castleford encouraged him to apply for an ex-serviceman’s grant to Leeds. He started in September 1919. Hepworth, a precociously talented student, had also shown a youthful determination to become a sculptor and at the age of just fifteen, her Headmistress at Wakefield Girls' School allowed her to sit for a scholarship to Leeds. She arrived in the autumn of 1920 and recalled feeling ‘very young and brash’ 2 upon meeting the ex-serviceman, nearly five years her senior. Moore hints at a brief romance,3 but certainly they formed a friendship and an artistic affinity which was to thrive over the next two decades. These diligent students had both condensed a two-year drawing course into twelve months and left the following year to continue their studies in the School of Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, London. Here they remained close friends in a group which included Edna Ginesi and Raymond Coxon, also from Leeds; occasionally travelling as a group to Paris, visiting museums and taking life-drawing classes when they had sufficient funds.4 Moore, having attained his diploma in 1924, postponed his travel scholarship to teach in the sculpture department at the RCA, whilst Hepworth and her first husband, John Skeaping, departed to study in Italy, returning in 1926 and eventually settling at 7 The Mall Studios, Parkhill Road, Hampstead in 1928. The following year, Hepworth found a studio for the newly married Moore and his wife, Irina, at 11a Parkhill
Road. As well as living in close proximity, visiting each other’s studios often and discussing ideas, the sculptors went on group working holidays together to the coast of Norfolk during the summers of 1930 and 1931, Moore’s family having relocated there in 1922. From the late 1920s to the mid-1930s, Hepworth and Moore enjoyed a close working, almost symbiotic, relationship, which Alan Wilkinson describes as ‘reminiscent of the constant borrowings and exchange of ideas between Braque and Picasso during the great early Cubist years’.5 They shared a preference for carving in wood and stone and developed, in quick succession, formal innovations, such as ‘pierced’ sculpture and multi-part compositions, which would have a lasting significance in the body of their work. Both artists' found inspiration from archaic, non-western and contemporary European sources and were influenced by the shape, texture and characteristics of natural objects; the ironstone pebbles they collected on the beach in Norfolk providing a rich, if temporary, stimulus. The second trip to Happisburgh is thought to have been arranged by Moore to help Hepworth and Skeaping repair their marriage. The introduction of Ben Nicholson to the party, however, irrevocably changed the dynamic and marked the beginning of new, reciprocal, artistic relationships.6 Nicholson had, most likely, met Hepworth when, along with the potter, William Staite Murray, they exhibited together at the Bloomsbury Gallery in April 1931. Hepworth recalled seeing his work for the first time in 1930: ‘To find an equivalent movement in painting to the one of which I was a part in sculpture was very exciting, and the impact of Ben Nicholson’s work had a deep effect on me.’ 7 Compared to Hepworth and Moore, Nicholson, the son of two artists, decided to pursue a career as a painter at the relatively late age of eighteen. He was enrolled for just over a year at The Slade School of Art in 1910, although he later recalled showing more interest in playing billiards with Paul Nash at the Gower Hotel than in his studies. Following his exemption from active service in 1914, Nicholson began travelling abroad, principally for his health and would continue to do so, following his marriage to the painter, Winifred Roberts in 1920. The Nicholsons were based for a time in Castagnola, Switzerland, but it was their visits to Paris, en route, which had the greatest impact on the artist during this period of ‘fast and furious experiment.’8 In 1924, Nicholson executed his first abstract paintings and was invited by Ivon Hitchens to join the Seven & Five Society, of which he became Chairman in 1926. Not long after the opening of the Bloomsbury Gallery exhibition, Ben and Winifred Nicholson spent an evening with Hepworth and Skeaping at 7 The Mall Studios and were subsequently invited to join the second working holiday in Norfolk.9 Winifred did not join the group, but Nicholson wrote to her from Happisburgh: ‘I do like these sort of free creative people…they are alive & vital – you know like we thought of Derain & Picasso in Paris, with same imagination & power & purpose’. A few days later, he continued: ‘That sculptor’s vision is most lovely & most exciting things happen. There is something very magical about
the transposing of ideas into form – it is quite amazing. Harry [Moore] seems to know all about everything I should say & in the most lovely quiet & humorous way – of course it is all in his sculpture but it is fun to see it every day in him.’10 Following their holiday, Nicholson and Hepworth began a passionate correspondence, but the painter also felt a strong connection with Moore, declaring after his departure: ‘I miss him very much & feel a great bond with all his ideas.’11 By November 1931, Nicholson had moved from his studio in Chelsea to 53 Parkhill Road and by March 1932 was sharing 7 The Mall Studios with Hepworth. Living and working alongside each other, Nicholson’s and Hepworth’s relationship effected a cross-fertilisation of ideas between sculpture and painting that would have a lasting impact on both artists’ work. In November 1932, they declared their new alliance by holding a joint exhibition at the gallery of Arthur Tooth and Sons, London. Discussing the exhibition in The Week-end Review, Paul Nash described the juxtaposition of their works as a ‘delightful unity’. Despite the different media, Nash discerned a ‘similarity of finished achievements’ between the carved abstractions of Hepworth with ‘the appearance of stone worn by the elements through years of time’ and the textured surface of Nicholson’s paintings, which displayed ‘the same feeling of things weathered and beautifully worn.’12 Inspired by Hepworth, Nicholson carved his first reliefs in 1933, encouraged by the proximity of her tools, as well the experience of making linocuts. Nicholson’s influence on the carvings of Hepworth and Moore at this time can been seen in the incised lines, signifying facial features on the surface of their sculptures suggesting the simplified, linear profiles of Nicholson’s paintings. Nicholson also stimulated the progression of both sculptors’ work towards abstraction, with Hepworth’s exploration of relationships between simple geometric forms in white marble providing a perfect three-dimensional counterpoint to Nicholson’s radical white reliefs. Under Nicholson’s influence, the work exhibited by the Seven & Five Society also became increasingly abstract with the more figurative artists falling away. Despite the fact that Nicholson, Hepworth and Moore had all previously demonstrated an interest in the curved, organic forms of Continental surrealism, the distinction between this movement and abstraction became increasingly polarised in advance of the major ‘Abstract and Concrete’ and ‘International Surrealist’ exhibitions of 1936. The arrival in Hampstead of a number of leading international artists from the mid-1930s on, including Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Naum Gabo and Piet Mondrian, greatly strengthened the Constructivist element in the group and led to the publication of their manifesto, Circle: International Survey of Constructive Art in 1937, which Nicholson co-edited with Gabo and the architect Leslie Martin. The exchange of ideas between European and English artists, which paralleled the interdisciplinary nature of modern art, was to a large extent due to Nicholson’s establishment and continuation of associations he had cultivated in Paris. His frequent trips to visit Winifred and their children there meant that he was able to inform
his friends back home of exciting developments by the European avant-garde and promote their work abroad, as well as arrange introductions and studio visits for them. Nicholson was also instrumental in drawing these influential artists to Hampstead; in Mondrian’s case finding him a studio close to his own, following his arrival in London with Winifred. The ‘nest of gentle artists’, that formed around Hepworth in Hampstead during the 1930s, was documented by another important member of the group, whose influence would secure the triumvirate’s standing in the history of twentieth century art. The poet, writer and critic Herbert Read was instrumental, not only as the principal spokesperson for the English avant-garde (editing the published manifesto of Unit 1 in 1934, to which all three artists contributed), but also in his support of the artists individually, in the monographs and exhibition catalogue introductions he wrote for them. Nicholson later acknowledged their debt to Read in a letter to Patrick Heron: ‘What the contemporary art movement in England wld have done without him (& what Barbara Henry & I would have done in the 30s without his active support) I don’t know the whole landscape wld have been changed too slowly [sic]’ (letter dated December 30, 1968). By the end of the 1930s, Nicholson, Hepworth and Moore were confirmed as key figures in the international modern art movement, positions that would be sustained by their representation at the Festival of Britain in 1951 and in their individual exhibitions at Venice Biennales; Moore in 1948, Hepworth in 1950 and Nicholson in 1954. Although the outbreak of World War Two was to bring their community to an end, Hepworth and Nicholson relocating to Cornwall in 1939 and Moore to Hertfordshire in 1940, as Read was boldly to assert, ‘what had to be done for the future of British Art had been done.’13
1 Herbert Read, ‘British Art 1930–1940’, Art in Britain centred around Axis, Circle, Unit One, exhibition catalogue, Marlborough Fine Art, London, 1965, p. 5. 2 Barbara Hepworth A Pictorial Autobiography, Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1985, p. 15. 3 Moore recounted ‘After I’d been at Leeds for about a year, Barbara Hepworth came to the school…I became a bit sweet on her and we went out together’ (H. Moore and J. Hedgecoe, Henry Moore, My ideas, inspirations and life as an artist, Ebury Press, London, 1986, p. 31). 4 Barbara Hepworth A Pictorial Autobiography, op.cit., p. 15. 5 P. Curtis and A. Wilkinson, Barbara Hepworth, A Retrospective, exh cat, Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1994, p. 38. 6 For a detailed account of the Happisburgh holidays see Nicholas Thornton’s introduction to Moore/ Hepworth/Nicholson: A Nest of Gentle Artists in the 1930s, exh cat, Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, 2009. 7 The artist cited in Barbara Hepworth, A Retrospective, op.cit., p.34. 8 Letter dated 4th Jan 1944 cited in J. Lewison, Ben Nicholson, exh cat, Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993, p. 20. 9 A photograph of the group in Happisburgh can be seen opposite the foreword. 10 Ben Nicholson writing to Winfred Nicholson on 17th and 20th September 1931 cited in J. Lewison, Ben Nicholson, op.cit., pp. 37, 96. 11 Cited in J. Lewison, ibid., p. 37. 12 Cited in A.M. Hammacher, Barbara Hepworth, Thames & Hudson, London, 2004, p. 50. 13 Herbert Read, ‘A Nest of Gentle Artists’, Apollo, September 1962.
BEN NICHOLSON OM
Denham 1894 – 1982 London
Ben Nicholson was born in Denham, Buckinghamshire in 1894, the eldest of four children of artists Sir William Nicholson and his first wife Mabel Pryde. He spent his early education at Heddon Court, Hampstead and Gresham’s School, Holt before studying at the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 1910–11, where he met and befriended Paul Nash. Following graduation, Nicholson spent time in France and Italy before living in Pasadena, California for health reasons between 1917–18. He was declared unfit for active service during the First World War due to his asthma. In 1920 Nicholson married the artist Winifred Roberts and they subsequently divided their time between London, Cumberland and Switzerland, often visiting Paris on the way. Having experienced Cubism first hand, he produced his first abstract paintings in 1924. That same year he held his first solo exhibition at the Twenty-One Gallery, London and was invited to become a member of the Seven and Five Society. Accompanied by the artist Christopher Wood, Nicholson visited St Ives, Cornwall for the first time in August 1928, where they discovered the painter Alfred Wallis who would become an important influence on them both. In 1931 he met the sculptor Barbara Hepworth, and within a year began sharing a studio with her in Hampstead. Together they held a joint exhibition at Tooth’s Gallery, London in 1932. Nicholson would go on to marry Hepworth after his divorce from Winifred Nicholson was finalised in 1938. From 1933 Nicholson became a member of Unit One and was invited, together with Hepworth, to join the group Abstraction-Création. He began making abstract reliefs in 1933
and a series of white painted reliefs the following year which would establish his international reputation. Winifred’s move to Paris in 1932 with their children meant that Nicholson visited often, enabling him to establish links with other artists there, including Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso and Jean Arp. In 1934 he met Piet Mondrian and played an active role in his move to Hampstead in 1938. Nicholson co-edited the publication Circle: International Survey of Constructive Art with the sculptor Naum Gabo and the architect Sir Leslie Martin in 1937. In 1939 Nicholson and Hepworth relocated with the triplets (born in 1934) to Cornwall where he resumed painting landscapes and coloured abstract reliefs. His international reputation grew during the 1950s as a result of a series of large still lifes for which he received several important prizes. In 1954 he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale (alongside Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon) and was awarded the Ullisse prize. The following year the Tate Gallery held the first of two retrospectives of his work, the second being shown in 1969. In 1958 he moved to Switzerland with his third wife Felicitas Vogler (Hepworth and Nicholson having divorced in 1951) where he began to concentrate once more on abstract reliefs including a large wall relief made in 1964 for the Documenta III exhibition in Kassel, Germany. He was awarded the Order of Merit in 1968. Nicholson returned to England in 1971, living until 1974 in Cambridge and then in Hampstead where he remained until his death in 1982.
1 1936 (gouache)
Signed Ben Nicholson, dated 1936 and inscribed ‘painting (in gouache) version 5/12/Dunluce, Trelyon, St. Ives, Cornwall’ on the reverse Gouache: 14 ¾ x 19 ⅝ in / 37.5 x 49.8 cm Framed size: 22 ⅛ x 26 ⅞ in / 56.2 x 68.3 cm P R OV E N A N C E
Sale, Sotheby’s, London, 26th June 1985, lot 439 Ivor Braka Esq, England Bukowski Auctioneers, Sweden, 1988, no.10 Richard Green, London, April 2003 Private collection, Europe, June 2003 Richard Green, London L I T E R AT U R E
See Norbert Lynton, Ben Nicholson, Phaidon, London, 1993, pp. 160–4 (Victoria & Albert Museum version illustrated pl. 146) R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY, F O R S A L E
Ben Nicholson created twelve versions of this iconic 1936 painting, at least two of which are held in public collections at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London [P.2-1961] and the A. E. Gallatin Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art [1945-91-4]. While retaining the geometric precision and considered arrangement of the oil paintings, the radiant colours of this gouache (inscribed version no. 5) are far more powerful, in particular the vibrant central primaries red and blue, but also the luminous light grey and a clearer distinction between soft black and brown. The juxtaposition of interlocking light and dark, opaque and transparent coloured planes of various sizes creates the illusion of different depths in space. Utilizing the same flat, rectilinear forms in tightly orchestrated arrangements, Nicholson’s abstract paintings of the 1930s saw an avid exploration of colour in direct contrast to his white reliefs of the same period. The introduction of vivid primary colours to an otherwise muted if not monochromatic palette can be attributed to a number of artistic influences, including Nicholson’s interaction with the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian (1872–1944), whose studio in the rue du Départ, Paris, he first visited in 1934 (an association illuminatingly explored in the recent exhibition Mondrian//Nicholson in parallel, at the Courtauld Institute of Art). In their coloured abstract work, both artists frequently introduced a small area of intense colour (in the present work red) into a rigorous system of straight-edged, interlocking planes. While Nicholson centralised the arrangement of his composition around the key note, it was Mondrian’s practice to relegate it to the margins.
The links between abstraction, the power of colour relationships and the illusions of pictorial space had already been established for Nicholson in the early 1920s by the post-collage, Cubist works of Picasso and Braque. Nicholson created his first abstract paintings in 1924, 1924 (first abstract painting, Chelsea) (Tate Gallery) and 1924 (painting – trout) (private collection), having the same year experienced a ‘completely abstract’ work by Picasso with, at its centre, ‘an absolutely miraculous green – very deep, very potent and absolutely real’ (the artist in a letter to John Summerson, 1944 cited in Picasso & Modern British Art, exh cat, Tate Publishing, London, 2012, pp. 95–96). By 1936, Nicholson had met and fallen in love with Barbara Hepworth. In 1932 he parted with the artist Winifred Nicholson, moving from Chelsea to Parkhill Road, Hampstead, where he worked alongside Hepworth in her studio. Winifred’s move to Paris with their children meant that Nicholson visited the city often, picking up on the latest developments of the European avant-garde and meeting its key proponents. As a member of Abstraction-Création and co-editor of Circle: International Survey of Constructive Art with sculptor Naum Gabo and architect Leslie Martin, Nicholson became ‘a kind of Paris-London liaison’, establishing and maintaining links which revitalized English Modernism in the 1930s (cited in Sarah Jane Checkland, Ben Nicholson: The Vicious Circles of his Life and Art, London, 2000, p. 119). By the end of that decade Nicholson’s reputation as the country’s leading exponent of geometric abstraction was assured and his international reputation was taking off.
2 Composition, 1938
Signed Ben Nicholson and dated 1938 on the reverse; signed, dated and inscribed on the backboard Pencil and gouache on card: 15 ¾ x 12 ¼ in / 40 x 31 cm Framed size: 25 x 21 in / 63.5 x 53.3 cm P R OV E N A N C E
Sold by the artist in aid of the victims of the Spanish Civil War circa 1938 Brook Street Gallery, London Sale, Sotheby’s, London, 30th June 1982, lot 183 Robert and Rena Lewin, London Richard Green, London R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY, F O R S A L E
The tonal and formal purity of Composition, 1938, echoes the preoccupations which inspired Nicholson’s seminal series of white reliefs dating from 1934. Initially rendered free-hand, the vocabulary of these works; square, rectangle and circle, became more precise and tightly controlled with the aid of ruler and compass, increasing the tension between interacting shapes and creating a more powerful visual impact. By varying the strength and width of the pencil lines in the present work, the artist plays with the illusion of depth between planes, the thick border line of the composition recreating the effect of a shadow cast were the drawing carved in relief. Nicholson takes the visual association further by subtly colouring the right hand column in a mottled light-brown wash emphasizing the fibre of the paper and recalling the texture of a piece of board. The absence of colour which characterises this strand of Nicholson’s work at the time (made concurrently with his coloured abstract works and still life subjects), was part of a broader cultural trend as well as a result of the artist’s personal experience. As Virginia Button summarises, ‘white was hugely significant in the context of 1930s international modernist art, architecture and design, which heralded a new, brighter, cleaner world. Ben admired Le Corbusier’s pristine, modern architectural style. He may have read Theo van Doesburg’s essay ‘Vers la Peinture Blanche’, published in Art concret (1930), which argued that white was the spiritual colour of the times...Nicholson’s maiden flight in an aeroplane on 30 December 1933 also had a direct impact, as letters to Winifred link his works to the ‘transcendent’ experience of flying above white clouds’ (V. Button, Ben Nicholson, Tate Publishing, London, 2007, p. 25).
Nicholson’s use of white and the increased precision of line and form can also be linked to his association with Mondrian, the vast areas of white canvas bound by Mondrian’s black grids and the white-washed walls of his (and later Nicholson’s) studio. At Nicholson’s encouragement, Mondrian arrived in London in 1938, staying in a room found for him by the artist close to the Mall Studios in Hampstead where he and Hepworth lived. Here Mondrian joined ‘the Nest of Gentle Artists’, at a time when London was briefly centre of the international avant-garde (Herbert Read, ‘A Nest of Gentle Artists’, Apollo, September 1962). Hepworth’s marble carvings of this period, exhibited alongside Nicholson’s reliefs at the ‘Abstract and Concrete’ exhibition in 1936, were exploring a similarly radical aesthetic of layered geometric planes and circles, her upright Monumental Stele, 1936, in blue Ancaster stone (destroyed during World War II) exhibiting a marked similarity to the present drawing.
3 1940 – 42 (two forms)
Signed Ben Nicholson, dated and inscribed '1940 – 42/(Version 4)/(gouache)' on the reverse Gouache: 8 ¾ x 9 in / 22.2 x 23 cm Framed size: 15 1/2 x 15 1/2 in / 39.4 x 39.4 cm P R OV E N A N C E
The artist, presented as a gift to David Baxandall in the 1940s, then by descent Richard Green, London L I T E R AT U R E
Herbert Read, Ben Nicholson, paintings, reliefs, drawings, vol. I, Lund Humphries, London, 1955, no. 106 (another version illustrated) See Norbert Lynton, Ben Nicholson, Phaidon, London, 1993, pp. 181–186 (Southampton City Art Gallery and National Museum of Wales versions illustrated plates 165 & 166) R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY, F O R S A L E
Developing the theme established in his colour abstract paintings of the previous decade, Nicholson excelled himself with this small, exquisite gouache in a series of nine versions of varied size and media, three of which are held in public collections; 1940–42 (two forms), Southampton City Art Gallery [1/1966], 1940–43 (two forms), National Museum of Wales, Cardiff [NMW A 2036] and Gouache 1940–43, Museum of Modern Art, New York [649.1994]. Initiated in 1940, the year after Nicholson, Hepworth and their children had left London for Carbis Bay in Cornwall, the gouache was then reworked and completed two years later. The two multicoloured forms of the title float before a setting of horizontal blue-grey bands, lightening in colour from top to bottom, the right hand form arranged around a white block like a piercing through the work. The vibrant, primary colours of red and blue from Nicholson’s 1936 painting still play a vital part in the arrangement, but the composition is more sophisticated and reflective, whilst prefiguring Nicholson’s return to more representational landscape and still life subjects. For Norbert Lynton, the triple-banded background suggests an immediate response by the artist to his experience of the Cornish landscape, expressing a ‘sand, sea and sky effect’ (N. Lynton, Ben Nicholson, Phaidon, London, 1993, p. 181). Though Jeremy Lewison emphasises the still life quality inherent in the two forms, like objects on a table, he also remarks upon the relationship between Nicholson’s use of colour and his natural environment ‘typified by silvery blues evocative of Cornwall’s light’ (J. Lewison, Ben Nicholson, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993, p. 60 and p. 223, no. 76). Lewison goes on to remark that, ‘The relationship between two objects or forms was explored extensively in the
sculpture of Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore during the thirties. This was probably a conscious reworking of the theme by Nicholson in a two-dimensional media’ (ibid., p. 223). A further connection can be made between the lightfilled, white plane in the centre of the right-hand form in the present work and Hepworth’s piercings through sculpture at the same time. For Barnaby Wright, Two forms is one of the last works to demonstrate the profound affinity between Nicholson’s and Mondrian’s approaches to abstraction. With an even longer development, Mondrain’s Composition No. III whiteyellow, 1935–42 (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art), also uses multiple planes of colour and a ‘white channel running the length of the canvas’ similar to the central space dividing Nicholson’s two forms (C. Green and B. Wright (ed.) Mondrian//Nicholson: In parallel, exhibition catalogue, The Courtauld Gallery, Paul Holberton Publishing, London, 2012, no. 19, pp. 145–147). Nicholson and Hepworth failed to persuade Mondrian to join them in Cornwall and would never see him again. He moved instead to New York, where he died in 1944. The sudden move to Cornwall provoked by the onset of World War II was precipitated by the invitation of their friend, the author Adrian Stokes and his wife, the artist Margaret Mellis, with whom they stayed at Little Park Owles before renting a house of their own at Dunluce in December 1939. The lack of space and scarcity of materials resulting from the radical change in circumstances most likely affected the scale of this and other work produced during this difficult period.
4 Painted relief Nov 23-46 (Zennor landscape)
Signed Ben Nicholson, dated 1946 and inscribed ‘painted relief Nov 23-46/ (zennor landscape)’; ‘Nicholson/Chy an Kerris/Carbis Bay/Cornwall’ on the reverse Oil, gesso and pencil on carved board on masonite: 20 ¾ x 33 ⅜ in / 52.7 x 84.7 cm Framed size: 22 ¾ x 35 ¼ in / 57.8 x 89.5 cm P R OV E N A N C E
The artist, until 1954 Herbert Agoos, Cambridge, Massachusetts Sale, Sotheby’s, London, 4th July 1979, lot 127 Christian Fischbacher, Switzerland Richard Green, London, 2007 Private collection, UK, 2007 Richard Green, London E XHIBITED
London, The Lefevre Gallery, Ben Nicholson: Drawings 1921–47, Paintings and Reliefs 1921–38, 1946–47, May 1947, no. 81 London, The Arts Council of Great Britain, British Paintings 1925–1950: first anthology, 20th June – 16th September 1951, no. 63 Canada, touring exhibition organised by the British Council of Fine Arts, Five Contemporary British Painters, 1952 – 1953, no. 25 London, Guildhall Art Gallery, Trends in British Art 1900–1954, 15th July – 21st August 1954 Zurich, Gimpel-Hanover & André Emmerich Galerien, Opening Exhibition, 25th November 1978 – 13th January 1979, no. 2 London, Richard Green, British Painting 1940–1990, November 2007, p. 12, no. 22, illustrated in colour p. 13 L I T E R AT U R E
Anthony Bertram, A century of British painting 1851–1951, The Studio Publications, London & New York, 1951, no. 66, illustrated in colour [illustrated upside down] John Curtis, ‘The New Pattern of British Paintings’, The Studio, London, March 1952, p. 67, illustrated in colour Herbert Read, Ben Nicholson, paintings, reliefs, drawings, vol. I, Lund Humphries, London, 1955, p. 10, no. 199, illustrated in colour This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Ben Nicholson’s paintings and carved reliefs being prepared by Dr Lee Beard. R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY, F O R S A L E
Nicholson made his first relief in Paris in 1933 and documented his exhilarating discovery in a letter to Barbara Hepworth on 12th December: ‘I did a very amusing thing yesterday. I carved it all day long it is about 2ice the size of this sheet of notepaper & looks like a primitive game’ (cited in J. Lewison, Ben Nicholson, exh cat, Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993, p. 216). The artist later recounted to Herbert Read in 1962 that he had stumbled upon the idea when a small piece of gesso fell out of a prepared board he was working on and inspired him to carve it further: ‘mine came about by accident & bec. of Barbara’s sculptor’s tools lying around’ (Peter Khoroche, Ben Nicholson: drawings and painted reliefs, Lund Humphries, Aldershot, 2002, p. 35). Nicholson’s mention of Hepworth’s tools and his writing to her the next day, illustrate the importance of her influence in his new approach and the reciprocity of their relationship. Nicholson was already involved in scraping and incising his work, in addition to carving lino blocks, and was aware of Adrian Stokes’ promotion of relief carving in books such as Stones of Rimini, 1934 (for which Nicholson designed the cover). His development towards direct carving can also be seen as a natural progression of his interest in overlapping planes and their spatial relationships stimulated by his experience of Cubism. Carved more than ten years later in 1946, by which time Nicholson and Hepworth had moved to Chy an Kerris, Painted relief Nov 23-46 (Zennor landscape) is an exceptional example of the refinement his carved and painted reliefs had achieved. Maintaining the precise formal vocabulary of his coloured abstracts and white reliefs, Nicholson here breaks into the picture plane, recessing surfaces and playing on the appearance of drawn lines and carved edges. The overlapping, rectangular forms create subtle, regular shadows demonstrating the significance of the fall of light to the perception of forms and surfaces, which change with movement in the same way as sculpture. The joy Nicholson felt in the interaction between planes, media and disciplines is expressed in a letter he later wrote the artist/critic Patrick Heron: ‘I have always been interested in the sculptural-architectural approach… I do like to chisel out a form (either with a chisel or a pencil) – & there is an excitement for me in chiselling out flat planes – or in chiselling out by a single line…a whole elaborate form…In dealing with space I like a series of flat planes which interchange their position in depth…always I hope in depth & never on the single plane of the surface’ (Letter to Patrick Heron, 9th Feb 1954 cited in J. Lewison, op. cit., p. 75). The painting’s subtitle, horizontal format and muted, naturalistic palette evoking the ‘silvery grey skies and sandy beaches of St Ives’ again stress the importance of the natural environment, the rugged Penwith landscape, a powerful influence on Nicholson throughout his career (Jeremy Lewison, ibid., p. 223). The rough, scrubbed and scraped surface of the lighter planes in the centre and to the right, go even further in this direction by seeking to recreate the weathered texture of natural materials such as stone. This emphasis could also relate to Nicholson's reference to the village of Zennor, renowned for its prehistoric stone burial chamber, Zennor Quoit. Nicholson’s fascination with megalithic architecture, perhaps reflected in the block-like forms of the present composition, had a lasting impact on his work, in particular his reliefs. An interest he shared with Hepworth.
5 Still life, 1946
Signed Ben Nicholson, dated 1946 and inscribed with the title on the reverse; further inscribed ‘for IKSE/ with best wishes/from Ben/ Oct 47/Vibehoj/ June 25–51' Oil and pencil on carved board: 13 1/2 x 15 ¼ in / 34.3 x 38.8 cm Framed size: 21 x 23 in / 53.3 x 58.4 cm P R OV E N A N C E
Aase and Ikse Vibe-Hastrup, Denmark, a gift from the artist, October 1947 Sale, Sotheby’s, London, 2nd December, 1987, lot 227 Sale, Christie’s, London, 28th November 1989, lot 404 Private collection, USA Richard Green, London, 2002 Private collection, Europe, 2002 Richard Green, London E XHIBITED
London, Crane Kalman Gallery, A tribute to Ben Nicholson, 3rd July – 10th August 1974, no. 15 Vevey, Musée Jenisch, Peintres du Silence: Julius Bissier, Giorgio Morandi, Ben Nicholson, Mark Rothko, Mark Tobey, Italo Valenti, 13th September – 22nd November 1981, no. 15 L I T E R AT U R E
Herbert Read, Ben Nicholson, paintings, reliefs, drawings, vol. I, Lund Humphries, London, 1955, p. 9, no. 153, illustrated (medium incorrect) Norbert Lynton, Ben Nicholson, Phaidon, London, 1993, p. 207, no. 191, illustrated in colour This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Ben Nicholson’s paintings and carved reliefs being prepared by Dr Lee Beard. R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY, F O R S A L E
In a dramatic departure from the geometric precision of Nicholson’s abstract work of the late 1930s, this vivacious still life seems to take sensuous delight in colour, texture and movement. While riffing on the tightly grouped edges of overlapping planes seen in his earlier white reliefs, Nicholson’s rectilinear forms are now animated by irregular areas of bright, lime green and rust red colours and rotated to oblique angles creating a tangible sense of dynamism. Thick tapering bands of black suggest the shadows cast by three-dimensional form (for example the curving inside lip of the mug), however there is only minimal carving which is itself playfully undermined. Though the central, integrated white form created by the fused mug and goblet seems to project furthest from the board, it has been carved into shallow recession and is therefore furthest
away from the viewer. The intersecting silhouettes of rectangular cup, curving handle and voluptuous chalice are inscribed in pencil, the relative opacity of the painted mug against the scrubbed, transparent goblet adding to the sense of illusionistic depth. Still life was a recurring theme in Nicholson’s work throughout his career. Even before he became an artist, he recalled being surrounded by still life objects during his childhood, collected and depicted by his father, the painter Sir William Nicholson: ‘the very beautiful striped and spotted jugs and mugs and goblets, and octagonal and hexagonal glass objects’ (cited in Sophie Bowness, ‘The Poetic Painting of Ben Nicholson’, Ben Nicholson, exhibition catalogue, Helly Nahmad Gallery, London, 2001, p. 5). Nicholson made a further emotive association between the domestic still life subject and the carving of his reliefs thanks to his mother, Mabel Pryde (another artist), who would go downstairs to scrub the kitchen table following too much talk about art. Nicholson later used the top of a kitchen table as a palette for mixing colours and creating grounds (David Lewis, ‘Scratching the surface’, Tate Etc, Issue 13, Summer 2008, p. 102). Still life was of comparable importance to the Cubist innovator Georges Braque, whose work influenced Nicholson from the 1920s and with whom he developed a friendship in the 1930s. Nicholson shared with Braque a finely tuned sensitivity to materials and a pride in craftsmanship, apparent here in the scrupulously prepared, individuated surfaces layered like a papier collé while emphasising the texture inherent in the board. The primacy of material in Nicholson’s work was also encouraged by the extraordinary paintings of the sailor and painter Alfred Wallis (whom the artist discovered with Christopher Wood in 1928). Executed on scraps of card and wooden board, Wallis’s painting no doubt informed the hand-made, idiosyncratic character of the artist’s reliefs.
6 September 1955 (Alcino)
Signed Ben Nicholson, dated and inscribed ‘(Alcino) Sept 1955’ on the reverse Oil and pencil on pavatex: 48 x 60 in / 121.9 x 152.4 cm Framed size: 51 ¼ x 63 ¼ in / 130.2 x 160.7 cm P R OV E N A N C E
The artist André Emmerich Gallery, New York, 1964 [10449] Private Collection, Milwaukee, 1965, acquired from the above Miriam Gantz Field, then by descent Richard Green, London, 2007 Private collection, Europe, 2007 Richard Green, London E XHIBITED
Zurich, Galerie Charles Lienhard, Ben Nicholson, 3rd January – 7th February, no. 25 Hannover, Kestner Gesellschaft, Ben Nicholson, 26th February – 5th April 1959, no. 45, illustrated Mannheim, Städtische Kunsthalle, Ben Nicholson, 18th April – 18th May 1959, no. 45 Essen, Folkwang Museum, Ben Nicholson, 23rd July – 30th August 1959 Moscow, Pushkin Museum, then to Leningrad, The Hermitage Museum, organised by the British Council, Exhibition of British Painting 1720–1960, 1960, no. 110, illustrated London, Gimpel Fils, Collectors’ choice X, March 1961, no. 24 Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Ben Nicholson Retrospective, 1964, no. 47 New York, André Emmerich Gallery/Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, Ben Nicholson: reliefs, oil washes and paintings 1955–65, April 1965, no. 2, illustrated in colour Michigan, University of Michigan, Flint Institute of Arts, The first Flint Invitational: an exhibition of contemporary painting and sculpture, 4th November – 31st December, 1966 L I T E R AT U R E
John Russell, Ben Nicholson: drawings, paintings and reliefs 1911–1968, Thames and Hudson, London, 1969, fig. 118, illustrated in colour This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Ben Nicholson’s paintings and carved reliefs being prepared by Dr Lee Beard. R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY, F O R S A L E
Nicholson was offered a larger studio in 1949, No. 3 Porthmeor Studios, St Ives, which gave him the opportunity to work on a grander scale and a major series of still life paintings followed. The subtitle and warm palette of rich browns, lush green and pale yellow in this work call to mind a sun-drenched Italianate landscape, whose undulating hills are suggested through the transparent silhouette of a bottle or carafe. Nicholson visited Tuscany in October 1956 and travelled the year before to Rome, Sienna, Pienza, Chiusure, Assisi, St Quirico d’Orcia, Spello and Spoleto (see J. Lewison, Ben Nicholson, Tate Gallery Publishing, London, 1993, p. 247). The synthesis of still life and landscape subjects had been explored by Nicholson in various media, often based upon an intimate arrangement of objects before a window, framing the picture within a picture. The boundaries have been removed in these imposing works, the expansive landscape setting fusing with the large, white planes of the tilted table, over which is drawn the fluid, entwined outlines of a collection of vessels. Though pencil lines are also used to demarcate the segmented composition, the differentiation of surface treatment from sharply defined areas of colour to sections scrubbed and scraped back to the board, maintain a sense of receding and advancing planes, lending it the appearance of a shallow relief or marquetry. The horizontal spread of the linear still life objects is unified by a more diffuse tonal colouring, like evening light across the landscape/table. Nicholson’s monumental still lifes of this decade brought him immediate international acclaim. August 1956 (Val d’Orcia) (Tate Gallery), won the First Guggenheim International Painting prize that year. He was also awarded first prize at the 39th Pittsburg International Exhibition at the Carnegie Institute in 1952, the Ulisse Prize at the Venice Biennale of 1954 and the International Prize for Painting at the 1957 São Paulo Biennial. The present work was selected by the British Council of Fine Arts for an exhibition of British Paintings held in Moscow and Leningrad in 1960, before touring America with exhibitions in Dallas, New York and Michigan later that decade. Nicholson and Hepworth divorced in 1951.
7 June 1960 (stone goblet)
Signed Ben Nicholson and inscribed with the title on the reverse; also numbered ph 239 Oil and pencil relief on chipboard: 16 ⅛ x 7 1/2 in / 41 x 19.1 cm Framed size: 21 ¾ x 13 in / 55.2 x 33 cm P R OV E N A N C E
Galleria Lorenzelli, Milan Ernst Nebel, Switzerland Richard Green, London E XHIBITED
Zurich, Galerie Charles Lienhard, November – December 1960 Milan, Galleria Lorenzelli, Ben Nicholson, November 1960, no. 15 London, Richard Green, Realism to Abstract II, November 2004, p. 88, no. 33, illustrated in colour p. 89 L I T E R AT U R E
Ben Nicholson, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Lorenzelli, Milan, 1960, no. 15, illustrated This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Ben Nicholson’s paintings and carved reliefs being prepared by Dr Lee Beard. R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY, F O R S A L E
Nicholson left St Ives with his new wife Felicitas Vogler for Lake Maggiore, Switzerland in 1958. Following the complex still life arrangements of the 1950s, Nicholson returned to more simplified compositions with fewer forms in the 1960s. He also returned with enthusiasm to the creation of abstract carved reliefs on both a small and monumental scale. In this striking vertical relief, Nicholson elongates and undermines the shape and texture of the chipboard with pencil lines and areas of oil paint that contradict its two-dimensional surface. Running almost the full height of the relief, the voluptuous silhouette of a goblet is negatively articulated by an area blocked-out in white paint. The surface contained by the outline of the vessel has been roughly shaded or rubbed with off-white paint, approximating the colour and texture of stone. This wrought and weathered surface was characteristic of the artist’s late reliefs, the visual and titular reference to stone perhaps representative of Nicholson’s continued fascination with Neolithic sites. Three lines of a roughly drawn square cross over the curvilinear outline, the vertical line parallel to a narrowing margin on the left. The rectangular area marked by this margin is painted a slightly darker brown than the chipboard. In this way Nicholson uses colour, line and texture to create the illusion of multiple layers of overlapping planes upon the two-dimensional surface.
8 December 63 (key circle)
Signed Ben Nicholson and dated Dec 63 on the reverse; also numbered ph 560 and ph 581 Oil & pencil relief: 24 x 24 in / 61 x 61 cm Framed size: 30 x 30 in / 76.2 x 76.2 cm P R OV E N A N C E
Marlborough Fine Art Ltd, London [LBN10] Galleria de Foscherari, Bologna, Italy [8737] Galleria La Bussola, Turin Evelina Levi Broglio, Milan, acquired at the Turin exhibition, 1967 Richard Green, London E XHIBITED
New York, Marlborough-Gerson Gallery/Andre Emmerich Gallery, Ben Nicholson exhibition of reliefs, oil washes and paintings 1955–65, April 1965 London, Marlborough Fine Art, The Marlborough Exhibition, summer 1965, no. 37 Turin, Galleria La Bussola, Ben Nicholson, 1967, illustrated This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Ben Nicholson’s paintings and carved reliefs being prepared by Dr Lee Beard. R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY, F O R S A L E
The compositional arrangements of Nicholson’s later reliefs are increasingly dynamic, the compactly connecting forms carved with oblique lines invoking movement or the stored energy of tightly wound, interlocking elements. The single, incised circle is still present in many of these works, its importance noted in the subtitle. The reliefs of the 1960s were characteristically executed in the naturalistic tones of earth and stone, their surfaces repeatedly painted and scraped to produce a weathered effect redolent of the passage of time and erosion. The artist’s use of wood and board and his rigorous working of the surface texture, as if the colour were naturally occurring rather than painstakingly applied, underline the interconnectedness of colour and form for Nicholson: ‘In a painting it should be as impossible to separate form from colour or colour from form as it is to separate wood from wood-colour or stone-colour from stone. Colour exists not as applied paint but as the inner core of an idea and this idea cannot be touched physically any more than one can touch the blue of a summer sky’ (the artist cited in J. Lewison, Ben Nicholson, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery Publishing, London, 1993, p. 233). The jagged planes of the surrounding mountains visible from Nicholson’s house above Lake Maggiore, Ticino, Switzerland may also have influenced the arrangement and colouration of his reliefs at this time.
DAME BARBARA HEPWORTH CBE
Wakefield, Yorkshire 1903 – 1975 St. Ives, Cornwall
Barbara Hepworth was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire in 1903, the first of four children of Herbert Hepworth (a civil engineer) and his wife Gertrude Johnson. She was educated at Wakefield Girls’ High School before studying at Leeds School of Art from 1920, where she met the sculptor Henry Moore. After taking the two-year course in a single year, she moved to The Royal College of Art, London in 1921. Following a post-graduate year there, Hepworth was shortlisted for the Prix de Rome and was awarded a year’s travel scholarship. She moved to Florence in 1924 where she married fellow student and winner of the Prix de Rome, John Skeaping in May 1925. They later moved to Rome where Hepworth received a thorough training in carving and began working with stone. In November 1926 they returned to London, moving in 1928 to 7 The Mall Studios in Hampstead. Hepworth and Skeaping held joint exhibitions at the Beaux Arts Gallery in 1928 and at Arthur Tooth & Son in 1930. Their son, Paul was born in August 1929, but their marriage had already begun to deteriorate when Hepworth met Ben Nicholson in 1931. Hepworth and Skeaping divorced in 1933. Nicholson moved into Hepworth’s studio in 1932 and they held a joint exhibition of their work at Tooth’s Gallery that same year and again at the Lefevre Gallery in 1933. A member of the Seven & Five Society, Unit One and Abstraction-Création during the 1930s, Hepworth began making entirely abstract sculpture in 1934. She also gave birth to triplets Simon, Rachel and Sarah that year. Nicholson and Hepworth were married in 1938, moving to Cornwall a year later, at first staying in the house of their friend, the author Adrian Stokes and his wife Margaret Mellis. Hepworth would remain in St Ives until her death in 1975. During the
first three years of the war, Hepworth was unable to carve, though she drew at night after the domestic demands of the day. Her working conditions became easier after the family moved into a larger house in Chy-an-Kerris, Carbis Bay in 1942 and Hepworth secured a studio. The first retrospective exhibition of Hepworth’s work was held at Temple Newsam, Leeds in 1943. She represented British sculpture at the Venice Biennale in 1950 and was commissioned by the Arts Council to produce two sculptures for the Festival of Britain in 1951. Two further retrospectives in Wakefield in 1951 and at The Whitechapel Art Gallery, London in 1954 helped to confirm her Post-War reputation. Hepworth bought Trewyn Studio, St Ives in 1949 and lived there permanently from 1950 following her separation from Nicholson and their divorce in 1951. In 1953 her first child, Paul Skeaping, was killed in an air crash. Hepworth travelled to Greece in 1954 in an effort to recover from his sudden death. Large public commissions such as Single Form, erected outside the United Nations Building, New York in 1964 helped to confirm Hepworth’s international standing, as did the award of the Grand Prix at the 1959 São Paulo Biennial. She was awarded a CBE in 1958 and appointed DBE in 1965, the same year in which she was elected a Trustee of the Tate Gallery. Along with her friend the potter Bernard Leach, Hepworth was awarded the Freedom of St Ives in 1968 in acknowledgement of her importance to the town. Hepworth died in 1975 as a result of a fire in her studio. According to her wishes, Trewyn studio was opened to the public as the Barbara Hepworth Museum in 1976 and is now part of the Tate Gallery.
9 Curved Form on Red
Signed and dated Barbara Hepworth 1962; signed, dated and inscribed with the title on the reverse Oil and pencil on board: 17 ¾ x 21 ¾ in / 45 x 55.3 cm Framed size: 27 x 31 in / 68.6 x 78.7 cm P R OV E N A N C E
Gimpel Fils Gallery Ltd., London, Design Research Unit, May 1965 Richard Green, London, 2006 Private collection, UK, 2007 Richard Green, London E XHIBITED
London, Gimpel Fils, Barbara Hepworth: Sculpture and Drawings, June 1964 London, Kenwood House, Autumn 1964 London, Richard Green, British Painting 1944–1998, November 2006, p. 66, no. 50, illustrated in colour p. 67 L I T E R AT U R E
Alan Bowness, Barbara Hepworth: Drawings from a Sculptor’s Landscape, Frederick A Praeger, New York, 1967, pl. 53, illustrated R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY, F O R S A L E
The categorisation of Barbara Hepworth’s two-dimensional works and their relation to her sculpture has always been complex. What is clear is the dramatic change between her two-dimensional works of the 1940s and later works, such as Curved Form on Red from the 1960s. During World War Two restrictions on Hepworth’s time and materials meant that drawing was the artist’s only viable means of creative expression, ‘If I didn’t have to cook, wash-up, nurse children ad infinitum’ she wrote to E.H. Ramsden in 1943, ‘I should carve carve carve. The proof of this is in the drawings. They are not just a way of amusing myself nor are they experimental probings – they are my sculptures born in the disguise of two dimensions’ (the artist cited in M. Gale and C. Stephens, Barbara Hepworth, Works in the Tate Collection and the Barbara Hepworth Museum St Ives, Tate Publishing, London, 1999, p. 79). By the 1960s drawing was no longer necessary as a diversionary creative outlet, but had become an important and autonomous part of Hepworth’s oeuvre. In contrast to the Wartime pictures, which typically feature crystal-like forms of intersecting lines on a pale ground, often with a small area of colour, Hepworth’s drawings of the 1960s (like her sculpture of the same period), are characterised by the range of forms and materials that she explored, emphasising the different qualities inherent in each distinctive media. While still concerned with the relation of colour and form, the rigorous linear structure
that previously circumscribed the painted areas relaxed, allowing for a more expressive and spontaneous response to the material. Writing in Drawings from a Sculptor’s Landscape, Sir Alan Bowness elucidates upon the development of Hepworth’s drawn works of the 1960s and the centrality of the relation of figure to landscape: ‘What has most notably happened is that the drawings have become much larger and grander in scale, and altogether more painterly, with colour playing an increasingly dominant role. They might more properly be called paintings. The boards are prepared as before with scumbled oil paint, making rich and variegated textures on which accents of stronger colour and thicker paint are placed. Of late the paint has tended to be more liquid, and sometimes already establishes the form which the drawn pencil line does little more than confirm...But it is the tightness and precision of the pencil line which attract attention. This is at once suggestive of sculptural form, and yet is also mysterious in a celestial way – it is no accident that words referring to sea and sky should so often appear in the titles... Many of the drawings of the 1960s were made within view of the sea, in a studio overlooking the Atlantic beach of Porthmeor, and the movement of tides and the forms of waves and wave patterns on the sea-shore sometimes provide their immediate inspiration’ (A. Bowness, op. cit., pp. 23–5). The immediate and yet perpetual stimulus of nature, in particular the sea, to which the author refers can clearly be seen in Curved Form on Red, whose open, unfinished oval and double, stringed circles prefigure the fluid, free-hand lines of Wave (ibid., no. 56) painted a year later. The sweeping blue and white painted areas of the overlapping circles in particular recall the movement and forms of waves while simultaneously suggesting the recession of a carved plane or stringed sculpture. Writing of her first response to the Cornish landscape, Hepworth noted, ‘the colour of the concavities plunged me into the depth of water, caves, of shadows deeper than the carved concavities themselves. The strings were the tension between myself and the sea, the wind or the hills’ (the artist cited in C. Stephens (ed.), Barbara Hepworth: Centenary, exhibition catalogue, Tate Publishing, London, 2003, p. 71).
10 Head (Icon)
White marble: 31 1/2 in / 80 cm height On a wooden base Executed in 1959 P R OV E N A N C E
Galerie Chalette, New York Thomas Baker Slick, Jr, 1959, then by descent Richard Green, London E XHIBITED
New York, Galerie Chalette, Hepworth, October – November 1959, cat. no. 27, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue San Antonio, Texas, McNay Art Museum, Tom Slick: International Art Collector, 10th June – 13th September 2009, illustrated in colour in the exhibition catalogue pp. 54–55 L I T E R AT U R E
Emily Genauer, ‘Zorach Inspired by Man, Hepworth by Material’, New York Herald Tribune, 18th October 1959, (referred to as Head p. 7) Unsigned, ‘Her Obsession’, Newsweek, 26th October 1959, pp. 62–63 John Russell, ‘London Letter: Sculpture Renaissance’, Art in America, Summer 1960, vol. 48, no. 2, illustrated p. 107 J.P. Hodin, Barbara Hepworth, Lund Humphries, London, 1961, cat. no. 251, illustrated Michael Shepherd, Barbara Hepworth, Methuen, London, 1963, p. 40, illustrated pl. 14 J.P. Hodin, ‘Barbara Hepworth and the Mediterranean Spirit’, Marmo, Milan, December 1964, no. 3, p. 62 A.M. Hammacher, Barbara Hepworth, Thames and Hudson, London, 1968 (revised edition 1987), illustrated p. 134, pl. 110 Matthew Gale and Chris Stephens, Barbara Hepworth: Works in the Tate Gallery collection and the Barbara Hepworth Museum St. Ives, Tate Gallery Publishing, London, 1999, pp. 226, 228 This work will be included as BH 251 in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Barbara Hepworth’s sculptures being revised by Dr Sophie Bowness. O N LOA N F R O M T H E R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY C O LL E C T I O N
Hepworth listed this important work as one of her best loved marble sculptures in an interview with J.P. Hodin in 1964, closely connected in her mind with her gift to the Tate Gallery that same year, Pierced Form, 1963–4 [T00704].1 In the same interview she described her particular attachment to the material from which they had been created: ‘I love marble specially because of its radiance in the light, its hardness, precision, and response to the sun’ (J.P. Hodin, ‘Barbara
Hepworth and the Mediterranean Spirit’, Marmo, no. 3, December 1964, p. 59). These particular qualities were undoubtedly enhanced by the distinctive natural light of St Ives, where the climate permitted the artist to carve in the open air for the best part of the year. In September 1949 Hepworth acquired Trewyn Studio, an ideal working environment with a stone-carving workshop and yard attached, which would also become her home following the separation from Nicholson.
Hepworth remained at Trewyn Studio until her death in 1975.2 Carving had been integral to the artist’s work since her instruction in Rome as a student of the master-carver, Giovanni Ardini, a passion which was renewed by her visit to Greece in 1954. Having made few carvings since the late 1930s, Hepworth returned to marble from this time onward.
and power of Head (Icon) is undeniable, in the experience of which, as Herbert Read described, ‘our senses are projected into the form, fill it and partake of its organization…it becomes a mandala, an object which in contemplation confers on the troubled spirit a timeless serenity’ (H. Read, Barbara Hepworth: Carvings and Drawings, Lund Humphries, London, 1952, pp. x–xi).
The reappearance of white marble in her work reveals a nostalgic trend (also visible in Nicholson’s reliefs of the 1960s), reasserting the primacy of material with a simplicity of form associated with the geometric abstraction of the 1930s. One of the most important formal features of both Hepworth’s and Moore’s sculpture, the pierced form, first appeared in Hepworth’s carvings in 1932. Representing the ultimate balance between space and form, Head (Icon) seems to be arranged around its central piercing rather than a sculpture through which a hole has been carved. A shallow, concave circle at the top of the marble softly echoes the cylindrical space below, which is surrounded by a recessed ovoid reflecting an inverted silhouette of the sculpture. Relishing the sensuous curvature of this strong yet sensitive material, Hepworth creates a dynamic interplay between light and shadow through the balance of mass and space. The sculpture’s smooth, luminous surface is interrupted by an oblique incision to the left of the top concavity, which, recalling the works foremost title could signify facial features. From the 1930s, Hepworth’s standing figures and heads had become single pierced forms, representing the artist’s main preoccupation with the figure in the landscape.
The 1950s was a decade of increasing international acclaim for Hepworth, but also of personal misfortune. She was chosen to represent British sculpture at the Venice Biennale in 1950 and was commissioned to create two new sculptures for the Festival of Britain the following year; Contrapuntal Forms, 1950–51 and Turning Forms, 1950. In 1958 she was made a Commander of the British Empire, and received a major commission for the State House in London, Meridian. In 1959, Hepworth was awarded the Grand Prix at the Fifth São Paulo Biennial organised by the British Council, and in October that year she visited New York for the first time to see a retrospective exhibition of her work at the Galerie Chalette.
This enigmatic marble also evokes the megalithic tors and menhirs of the Penwith peninsular, such as the Men-an-tol (stone of the hole), whose own solid materiality had been sculpted over millennia by the elements. In her later work, Hepworth explored the symbolic nature of her archetypal figure in the landscape through this primitive association, expressing a desire that her work should be ‘a totem, a talisman, a kind of touchstone for all that is of lasting value’ (the artist in an interview with Susanne Puddefoot, The Times, 3rd April 1968, p. 13 cited in C. Stephens (ed.), Barbara Hepworth Centenary, exh cat, Tate Publishing, London, 2003, p. 113). Totem, Talisman and Touchstone (as well as Icon), are all titles of marble sculptures from this period, references for sacred symbols expressing fundamental truths which transcend everyday concerns. In her statement on sculpture for Circle in 1937, Hepworth declared her intention to effect ‘a piercing of the superficial surfaces of material existence, that gives a work of art its own life and purpose and significant power’ (the artist, ‘Sculpture’, J. L. Martin, B. Nicholson, N. Gabo (ed.), Circle: International Survey of Constructive Art, Faber and Faber Ltd., London, 1937, p. 113). The life, purpose
1 Letter to Mary Chamot, assistant Keeper at the Tate: ‘As regards Pierced Form (Pentelicon) it is related formally I think with the earlier Pierced Hemisphere and I think related tactilely (sic) to the Heads 242 and 251 (Head (Icon))’ (cited in M. Gale and C. Stephens, Barbara Hepworth: Works in the Tate Gallery collection and the Barbara Hepworth Museum St. Ives, Tate Gallery Publishing, London, 1999, pp. 226, 228). 2 It was opened to the public as the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden, in the care of the Tate Gallery, in 1980.
Hepworth and Nicholson divorced in 1951. Two years later, her son Paul Skeaping (the only child from her first marriage to the sculptor John Skeaping) was killed on active service with the RAF in Thailand. In 1954 she carved a Madonna and Child for St Ives Parish Church in his memory.
11 Two Forms
Numbered 3/10 on the base Polished bronze: 6 in / 15.2 cm height On a slate base Cast 3 from an edition of 10 Conceived and cast at Holman, St Just, Cornwall in 1962 P R OV E N A N C E
Gimpel Fils, London Mrs Alan Temple, New York, 1963 Sale, Christie’s, New York, 12th February 1987, lot 147 Sale, Stephen Welz & Co., Johannesburg, 30th August 1994, lot 267 Private collection, South Africa, then by descent Richard Green, London
approach to bronze isn’t a modeller’s approach. I like to create the armature of a bronze as if I’m building a boat, and then putting the plaster on is like covering the bones with skin and muscles. But I build it up so that I can cut it. I like to carve the hard plaster surface. Even at the very last minute when its finished I take a hatchet to it’ (the artist cited in Alan Bowness (ed.), The complete sculpture of Barbara Hepworth 1960–69, Lund Humphries, London, 1971, p. 7).
E XHIBITED
While adopting new materials and creative processes, Hepworth’s sculpture of the 1960s often looked back to the formal purity of her geometric compositions from the 1930s, revisiting the dialogue between two and three part groupings in works such as Two Forms with Sphere, 1935–6 (private collection). Two Forms, 1962, can be seen to adhere to this nostalgic tendency, the beautiful curved, semi-circular forms standing separately, but gently inclining towards each other creating a triangular void filled with spatial tension. Besides the concave circle at the front of the element on the right, the pair of forms appear to be exactly the same, almost a mirror image, as the highly reflective surfaces suggest. Their warm, golden tonality is exquisite, the rhythmic play of light across the polished exterior mesmerizing. Hepworth counters the lustrous surface of the polished bronze with a block of matt slate whose vertices are repeated at remarkable angles within the shining forms.
London, O’Hana Gallery, International Exhibition and Sale of Contemporary Art, November 1962, cat. no. 19 St Ives, Penwith Society of Arts, Penwith Exhibition, Winter 1962 London, John Lewis Partnership, Barbara Hepworth: Sculpture and Drawings, April 1963, cat. no. 15 Swansea, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery and Museum (then travelling to Bangor, Wrexham and Isle of Man), Barbara Hepworth: A Sculptor’s Landscape 1934–1974, October 1982 – February 1983, cat. no. 15, illustrated p. 11 L I T E R AT U R E
Alan Bowness (ed.), The complete sculpture of Barbara Hepworth 1960–69, Lund Humphries, London, 1971, no. 318, p. 33, illustrated pl. 52 This work will be included as BH 318 in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Barbara Hepworth’s sculptures being revised by Dr Sophie Bowness. O N LOA N F R O M T H E R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY C O LL E C T I O N
Hepworth described the 1960s as ‘a fulfilment of my youth’ (A. Bowness (ed.), The complete sculpture of Barbara Hepworth 1960–69, Lund Humphries, London, 1971, p. 14). The variety of surface, scale and material in Hepworth’s sculpture from this period is extraordinary, from African hardwood, sheet brass, iron, copper, slate and marble to polished and patinated bronze. Perhaps the most significant and in some ways surprising development occurred in 1956, when Hepworth began to work enthusiastically in metal, creating sculpture in plaster to be cast in bronze. In the 1930s, the artist’s determined personal and philosophical attitude against modelling (in direct opposition to the rigorous discipline of direct carving with its expression of truth to material) would have made this advance seem impossible. However, as Hepworth explained to Alan Bowness in 1970, carving was also involved in the working of plaster: ‘My
In the same year that Hepworth produced the present work, she also created Holed Hemisphere (BH 320) and Sphere and Hemisphere (BH 319b) both in polished bronze, though on a slightly smaller scale (4 inches or under). She went on to explore this theme further with a series of small, rounded, but often irregular forms in slate and alabaster, entitled Three Forms in Echelon, in 1963 and 1964. Towards the end of the decade, Hepworth made what seems to be a monumental variation on the theme, Two Forms (Divided Circle), 1969, casts of which are in the collections of the Barbara Hepworth Museum, St Ives and Bolton Museum and Art Gallery.
12 Maquette for Monolith
Signed Barbara Hepworth and numbered 7/9 MS on the base Bronze with a green and brown patina on an integral bronze base: 12 7∕8 in / 32.7 cm height Cast 7 from an edition of 9 plus one artist’s copy Conceived in 1963 and cast by the Morris Singer Foundry by August 1964 P R OV E N A N C E
Christine Finn, August 1966 Sale, Sotheby & Co., London, 25th June 1975, lot 186 Private collection, USA Richard Green, London E XHIBITED
Otterlo, The Netherlands, Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller (Rietveld Pavilion), Beeldhouwwerken en tekeningen van Barbara Hepworth, 8th May – 18th July 1965, no. 39 Turin, Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna, Barbara Hepworth, October – November 1965, cat. no. 38, p. 10, illustrated p. 93 Basel, Kunsthalle, Barbara Hepworth, 14th September – 10 th October 1965; then toured to Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, 6th February – 27th March 1966 and Museum Folkwang, Essen, 30 th April – 26th June 1966, cat. no. 30 London, Gimpel Fils, Barbara Hepworth: 50 Sculptures from 1935 to 1970, 7th October – 15th November 1975, cat. no. 41, illustrated London, Gimpel Fils, Barbara Hepworth, October – November 1994 Santiago de Compostela, Auditorio de Galicia, Spain (and travelling to Fundação de Serralves, Porto, Portugal), Contemporary British Sculpture: From Henry Moore to the 90s, June – November 1995, no cat. no., illustrated in colour p. 103 L I T E R AT U R E
M v d H., ‘Gerrit Rietveld en Barbara Hepworth’, Brabantsch Nieuwsblad, 26th June 1965, illustrated (inside Rietveld Pavilion at 1965 exhibition) gf, ‘Idole des Intellekts’, Stuttgarter Nachrichten, 8th February 1966 Unsigned, ‘One woman’s work’, Northampton Chronicle and Echo, 28th August 1970, illustrated Alan Bowness (ed.), The complete sculpture of Barbara Hepworth 1960–69, Lund Humphries, London, 1971, cat. no. 349, p. 36, illustrated p. 37 Matthew Gale and Chris Stephens, Barbara Hepworth: Works in the Tate Gallery Collection and the Barbara Hepworth Museum St Ives, Tate Publishing, London, 1999, p. 223 Sophie Bowness (ed.), Barbara Hepworth: The Plasters. The Gift to Wakefield, Lund Humphries in association with The Hepworth Wakefield, Farnham, 2011, cat. no. 22 (plaster illustrated), pp. 138, 186; illustrated p. 138 (fig. 29), illustrated in colour p. 139 (cat. no. 22, plaster illustrated) This work will be included as BH 349 in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Barbara Hepworth’s sculptures being revised by Dr Sophie Bowness.
O N LOA N F R O M T H E R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY C O LL E C T I O N
Maquette for Monolith is directly related to the three metre high bronze, Squares with Two Circles, 1963, one cast of which belongs to the Tate [T00702] (on long term loan to Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Bretton Hall, Yorkshire).1 Carved from a solid block of plaster, Hepworth took the maquette to the Morris Singer Foundry to be cast in bronze in 1964 (see Sophie Bowness (ed.), Barbara Hepworth: The Plasters. The Gift to Wakefield, Lund Humphries/The Hepworth Wakefield, Farnham, 2011, p. 138).2 The large scale version, Squares with Two Circles, was a favourite work of the artist, revisiting an important stone sculpture, Monumental Stela, carved in 1936 and destroyed during the War. Like the monumental bronze, the front of the maquette is divided into two rectangles, the top section coloured a light sea green and slightly recessed from the section below which has a darker green, brown tonality also covering the reverse. This face is made up of several overlapping, vertical planes including the short rectilinear column upon which the composition lightly rests. The two oblique, conical holes piercing the upper and lower segments are coloured according to the opposing sections surface, unifying the horizontal and vertical formats. The combination of geometric elements, with layered rectilinear planes pierced by circles, recalls Nicholson’s shallow reliefs of the 1930s. The slight curve of the reverse visible from the side and the irregularity of the corners, as well as the uneven, eroded surface connect the work back to the landscape and Hepworth’s fascination for Neolithic standing stones. Following on from this work, Hepworth created Four-Square (Walk Through), 1966, on display at the artist’s garden in St Ives. During the 1960s, Hepworth undertook a series of large scale public commissions including Winged Figure (John Lewis, Oxford Street, London) and Single Form (United Nations, New York).
1 The Tate and the Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo acquired the first two casts in 1964, the third was sold to the private collectors, Patsy and Raymond Nasher, Dallas in 1968. 2 The plaster is in the collection of The Hepworth, Wakefield.
13 Six Forms (2 x 3)
Signed Barbara Hepworth, numbered 1/9 and dated 1968 on the base and stamped with a foundry mark ‘MORRIS SINGER FOUNDER LONDON’ on the edge of the base Bronze with a brown and green patina on an integral bronze base: 22 1/2 x 33 in / 57.2 x 83.8 cm Cast 1 from an edition of 9 plus one artist’s copy Conceived and cast in 1968 P R OV E N A N C E
L I T E R AT U R E
The artist’s estate Marlborough Fine Art, London Private collection, UK, May 1982, acquired from the above Richard Green, London
Alan Bowness (ed.), The complete sculpture of Barbara Hepworth 1960–69, Lund Humphries, London, 1971, p. 47, no. 467, pl. 13 (another cast illustrated) Alan Bowness, A Guide to the Barbara Hepworth Museum, St. Ives: Trewyn Studio and Garden, 1976 (and reprinted subsequently), cat. no. 30, p. 6, (cat. no. 31 in 1981 and 1984 editions; cat. no. 25 in 1996 edition) David Fraser Jenkins, Barbara Hepworth: a Guide to the Tate Gallery Collection at London and St Ives, Cornwall, The Tate Gallery, London, 1982, p. 20 (dated 1963), illustrated p. 38 (dated 1968) and in colour on front cover The Tate Gallery 1980–82: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1984, illustrated p. 122 Matthew Gale and Chris Stephens, Barbara Hepworth Works in the Tate Gallery Collection and the Barbara Hepworth Museum St Ives, Tate Publishing, London, 1999, pp. 215, 246–248, 249, cat. no. 67 (another cast illustrated) Sophie Bowness (ed.), Barbara Hepworth: The Plasters. The Gift to Wakefield, Lund Humphries in association with The Hepworth Wakefield, Farnham, 2011, cat. no. 36 (plaster illustrated), pp. 61–62, 63, 162, illustrated p. 61 (plate 55, visible in view of Freedom of St Ives exhibition in the Guildhall, 1968), p. 162 (fig. 47, plaster, carving studio, July 1968), and in colour p. 29 (plate 15, plaster, at The Hepworth Wakefield, 2010) and p. 163
E XHIBITED
New York, Gimpel Gallery (Gimpel and Weitzenhoffer Ltd.), Barbara Hepworth, April – May 1969, cat. no. 9, illustrated Winchester and Salisbury Cathedral Closes, Ten Sculptors, Two Cathedrals, July – September 1970 Austin, University of Texas Art Museum, Archer M. Huntington Gallery, Barbara Hepworth, 1st – 26th September 1971, cat. no. 2 Folkestone, New Metropole Arts Centre, The Artist and the Book in France: from Matisse to Vasarely and Barbara Hepworth Sculpture & Lithographs, December 1974 – February 1975, cat. no. 2, illustrated Galashiels, Scottish College of Textiles (and travelling throughout Scotland), Barbara Hepworth: a Selection of Small Bronzes and Prints, April 1978 – March 1979, cat. no. 22 Cologne, Galerie Gmurzynska, Klassische Moderne (The Classical Moderns), May – August 1981, cat. no. 46, illustrated p. 86 Swansea, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery and Museum (and travelling to Bangor, Wrexham and Isle of Man), Barbara Hepworth: A Sculptor’s Landscape 1934–1974, October 1982 – February 1983, cat. no. 22 Liverpool, Tate Gallery, Barbara Hepworth: a Retrospective, 14th September – 4th December 1994 (then travelling to Yale center for British Art, New Haven, 4th February – 9th April 1995 and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 19th May – 7th August 1995), cat. no. 76, illustrated p. 113 New York, Wildenstein Gallery, Barbara Hepworth: Sculptures from the Estate, October – November 1996, p. 30, illustrated in colour p. 49
This work will be included as BH 467 in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Barbara Hepworth’s sculptures being revised by Dr Sophie Bowness. O N LOA N F R O M T H E R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY C O LL E C T I O N
So much of Hepworth’s work sought to express or embody the harmonious integration of the human figure with the landscape. Hepworth explained ‘all my sculpture comes out of landscape – the feel of the earth as one walks over it, the resistance, the weathering, the outcrops, the growth structures...no sculpture really lives until it goes back to the landscape’ (cited in Chris Stephens (ed.), Barbara Hepworth: Centenary, exh cat, Tate Publishing, London, 2003, p. 63). Six Forms (2 x 3), cast in 1968, was inspired by a specific encounter at sea, as the artist recalled to Edwin Mullins: ‘the angles at which the piece are set, and the patterning on the bronze itself, were related to the experience of a boat-trip in the Scilly Isles, off the coast of Cornwall, and in particular the swirling motion of going round and round in the boat’ (see E. Mullins, Barbara Hepworth, exh cat, Hakone Open-Air Museum, 1970). The patterning Hepworth refers to is incredibly evocative of the motion and movement of her seafaring adventure. The broad, arcing indentations carved into the plaster follow the swelling curvature of the central forms like waves, in others the variegated markings are more diffuse like ripples on water or sea-spray. Their light green colouring against the golden, brown bronze is equally atmospheric.1
‘The varying thicknesses and curvatures demonstrate that they can be rearranged and reoriented to make a homogenous sculpture similar, but not identical, to the series of monolithic sculptures that culminated in Single Form, 1961–64 for the United Nations in New York…The constituent parts of Six Forms (2 x 3) could have originated from the fragmentation of such a model, and the discrepancies between it and the Hammarskjöld memorial might result from practical decisions made during the scaling-up and production processes. Such an imaginative reworking of an earlier piece would be consistent with Hepworth’s economy of production and may be compared to the incorporation of earlier carvings in a bronze such as Hollow Form with Inner Form of the same year. That the object resulting from the arrangement of Six Forms is the closest to Single Form (September), the genesis of the memorial, would also support the notion that it originated at an early stage in the project’ (M. Gale and C. Stephens, Barbara Hepworth works in the Tate Collection and the Barbara Hepworth Museum in St Ives, Tate Publishing, London, 1999, pp. 246, 248). Hepworth was certainly working on ideas for Six Forms (2 x 3) in plaster as early as July 1963, as recorded in a photograph of the artist at Trewyn studio.3
Hepworth related a very similar, if not the same experience of sailing around the Isles of Scilly in relation to the origins of Curved Form (Bryher), 1961: ‘Bryher is being in the boat, and sailing round Bryher, and the water, the island, the movement... a relationship between the sea and the land’ (the artist cited in A. Bowness (ed.), The complete sculpture of Barbara Hepworth 1960–69, Lund Humphries, London, 1971, p. 12). This earlier work was one of Hepworth’s first ideas for the Single Form series which resulted in the monolithic memorial sculpture for the United Nations Secretariat Building in New York, her largest and most important public commission. Cast in six sections, the final work incorporated the subdivisions into the principal face of the sculpture as incised lines. Bearing in mind the artist’s practice of reusing fragments of earlier work in plaster,2 it is possible that the Six Forms are actually fragments of a larger work or maquette from the Single Form series, reworked to texture the surface and carve the holes.
Cast 7 of Six Forms (2 x 3) is in the artist’s garden at the Barbara Hepworth Museum, St Ives [T03147]. The plaster is in the collection of The Hepworth, Wakefield. Hepworth’s study of multiple forms and the stacking of components during the 1960s led on to her totemic sculptures such as Three Forms Vertical (Offering), 1967 and The Family of Man, 1970.
1 ‘Hepworth’s instructions to the foundry [Morris Singer] were that the bronze ‘should be very lightly touched by liver of salts, with a touch of colour in texture’ (green) (2 August 1968)’ (Sophie Bowness, Barbara Hepworth: The Plasters. The Gift to Wakefield, Lund Humphries in association with The Hepworth Wakefield, Farnham, 2011, p. 162). 2 The plaster for Squares with Two Circles, 1963, for example was returned to Hepworth, broken up and used again. See Sophie Bowness (ed.), ibid., p. 162. 3 Sophie Bowness describes the work as Assembled Six Forms, 1963, an uncompleted work for bronze (ibid., fig. 46).
14 Four Forms
Numbered 1/9 on the base Polished brass: 13 1/2 in / 34.3 cm height On a slate base Cast 1 from an edition of 9 plus one artist’s copy Executed in St Ives in 1974 Based on an aluminium prototype executed in 1971 P R OV E N A N C E
Marlborough Fine Art, London Osman and Betty Mawardi, Cleveland, Ohio, USA, acquired from the above in April 1975 Richard Green, London This work will be included as BH 529 in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Barbara Hepworth’s sculptures being revised by Dr Sophie Bowness. O N LOA N F R O M T H E R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY C O LL E C T I O N
Four Forms, executed in polished brass in 1974, bears a striking resemblance to an earlier, slightly larger work of polished bronze entitled Four Figures Waiting, 1968, in the collection of the Cecil Higgins Museum, Bedford (BH 461). Reimagining the theme, Hepworth employs similar tall, curved elements, but the space between them has contracted resulting in a more unified arrangement, perhaps signifying the figures meeting. Each elegant shape, cut with a straight horizontal edge at top and base, varies slightly in height and width. Two forms are pierced with a single circular hole reflected on the opposite polished surface, the largest possessing two placed on a diagonal trajectory similar to those piercing Maquette to Monolith (cat. no. 12). The interrelation of forms representing figures had always interested Hepworth, but an experience observing the crowd in the Piazza San Marco, Venice in 1950 lent the subject an added impetus: ‘as soon as people, or groups of people, entered the Piazza they responded to the proportions of the architectural space...They grouped themselves in unconscious recognition of their importance in relation to each other as human beings’ (the artist cited in C. Stephens (ed.), Barbara Hepworth: Centenary, exh cat, Tate Publishing, London, 2003, p. 99). The open individual forms in the present work, cut and shaped out of sheet brass (a light, tensile metal in contrast to the earlier more solid, bronze forms), also recall the large scale aluminium Winged Figure, 1962, commissioned for the John Lewis Oxford Street department store. Hepworth made a series of stringed works using sheet metal from 1956 onwards, including Orpheus (Maquette 2) [T00955] in the collection of the Tate.
HENRY MOORE OM, CH
Castleford, Yorkshire 1898 – 1986 Much Hadham, Hertfordshire
The seventh child of Raymond Spencer and Mary Moore, Henry was born in Castleford, Yorkshire in 1898. His paternal great-grandfather was of Irish origin, but his father and grandfather were born in Yorkshire where, for two or three generations, they worked the land or went down the mines. At the age of twelve Moore obtained a grant to study at the Grammar School in Castleford where he was inspired by his art teacher to pursue a career in the arts. In 1916 he began to teach, but by February 1917 he had joined the army and left to fight in France. After being wounded in action in November 1917 at the battle of Cambrai, Moore was excused from active service. He returned to England, where he became a physical education instructor in the army. At the end of the war, Moore received a veteran’s grant to study at Leeds School of Art and in 1921 he joined a course at the Royal College of Art in London. A further grant enabled him to travel extensively from 1925, visiting Rome, Florence, Venice, Ravenna and Paris, where he met Picasso, Giacometti, Ernst, Eluard and Breton among others. On returning from his travels Moore was appointed Professor of Sculpture at the Royal College of Art where he worked two days a week until 1931, as well as teaching at the Chelsea School of Art until 1939. He was appointed an Official War Artist during the Second World War from 1940–1942 for which he made a series of drawings of people sheltering in the London Underground, as well as studies of miners at the coal face. In these pictures he frequently used watercolour over wax crayon.
After the war Moore enjoyed a great deal of success, with his works receiving critical acclaim all around the world. He executed many major commissions for museums, public institutions, private collectors and municipal buildings and as a result he became one of the most famous British artists of the twentieth century. At the beginning of the 1970s Moore created a foundation, the aim of which was to promote public awareness of sculpture and to protect his own work for the future. Located in his home village of Much Hadham, Hertfordshire, the foundation houses a library, archives and a collection of drawings, prints, maquettes and sculptures by the artist. Heavily influenced by the work of Michelangelo, Moore created monumental works in marble, stone and bronze and was enthralled by the theme of the family, and in particular the mother and child. His unique oeuvre draws inspiration from prehistoric, archaic, Egyptian, African, Mexican and Roman sculpture. Throughout his career he was noted for his output of graphic art – drawings, watercolours, etchings and lithographs which were not necessarily related to individual sculptures.
15 Three Women in a Shelter
Signed, dated and inscribed ‘Henry Moore / Three Women in Shelter / (one knitting & one with a child). 1941’ on the reverse Wax crayon, watercolour wash and pencil on paper: 6 ⅞ x 10 in / 17.5 x 25.4 cm Framed size: 16 ¾ x 19 1/2 in / 42.5 x 49.5 cm Recorded in the Henry Moore Foundation archives as HMF 1759 P R OV E N A N C E
Redfern Gallery, London Private collection, USA Sale, Doyle, New York, 13th November 2001, lot 47 Private collection, UK Richard Green, London L I T E R AT U R E
Ann Garrould (ed.), Henry Moore, Complete Drawings 1940–1949, Vol. 3, The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries, Aldershot, 2001, no. AG 41.1, illustrated p. 81 R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY, F O R S A L E
Henry Moore was living in Burcroft cottage in Kingston, Kent, when war was declared on 3rd September 1939, driving up to London a few days a week to teach at the Chelsea School of Art. With the fall of France and the threat of invasion, by June 1940 he and his wife Irina had returned to their studio at 11a Parkhill Road, Hampstead. Shortly after Hepworth and Nicholson’s move to Cornwall with the triplets, the Moores accepted the offer of their less expensive space at No. 7 The Mall Studios (just off Parkhill Road) by early September. A month later, after a weekend at the home of their friend Leonard Matters in Hertfordshire, they came back to find the studio badly damaged by bomb blast. The Moores returned to Much Hadham that night and within a few months were renting an old farmhouse called Hoglands in the nearby hamlet of Perry Green which would remain home for the rest of their lives.1 Moore initially refused the honour of becoming an Official War Artist, but was drawn to the subject of Londoners seeking refuge from the Blitz (which started on 7th September 1940) from his first sight of the shelterers at Belsize Park tube station: ‘I had never seen so many rows of reclining figures and even the holes out of which the trains were coming seemed to me to be like the holes in my sculpture…People who were obviously strangers to one another forming tight little intimate groups. They were cut off from what was happening up above, but they were aware of it. There was tension in the air. They were a bit like the chorus in a Greek drama telling us about the violence we don’t actually witness’ (Henry Moore: A Shelter Sketchbook, British Museum Publications, London, 1988, p. 9).
Following this affecting experience, Moore began to travel by tube visiting the underground stations where people sought shelter, making notes to recall subjects and poses which he would sketch from memory the following day.2 He would then execute larger, more finished drawings based on his notebook sketches. Three Women in a Shelter, which is squared in pencil ready for transfer, is the preparatory sketch for Shelter Drawing: Three Fates, 1941 [HMF 1830, AG p. 100] in the collection of Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, gifted from the Contemporary Art Society in 1942. The figures in both works refer to The Fates of Greek mythology otherwise known as The Moirai: Lachesis, Clotho and Atropos, whose winding, measuring and cutting of the metaphorical thread of life determined mortal destinies.3 Moore’s own life-thread connects the figures to the three important women in his own family and his frequent models, his mother, his sister and his wife. The strange triumvirate, one holding a child, one knitting, one with hands clasped in her lap, brilliantly portray the tension of enforced intimacy, the fragility of life and the threat of violence unseen by combining shelter scenes remembered with imagined sculptural forms. The naturalistic bodies engaged in acts of domesticity combined with abstracted heads signifying psychological disquiet. Trapped within the shadowy confines of an air-raid shelter, the artist emphasizes the sense of claustrophobia with the dramatic perspective of the corrugated walls, ruled first with pencil then black crayon and covered with a dark wash
broken with narrow patches of white. Moore strengthened the shading between and around the seated women to add depth to the enclosed space and project further the bright monumentality of the figures seemingly too large for their subterranean surroundings. Moore’s use of drapery plays a significant part in describing the three-dimensional, naturalistic bodies of the women, curving around their shoulders and falling in tight, linear ripples to their calves. Its undulating articulation seems to tie them closer together. Their arms, individuating their actions, demonstrate Moore’s two-way sectional technique, which he described as the use of line to define ‘both down the form as well as around it, without the use of light and shade modelling’ (cited in Alan G. Wilkinson, The Drawings of Henry Moore, exh cat, The Tate Gallery, London 1977, p. 16). In contrast to the depiction of limbs, the figures’ torsos are empty as if hollowed or carved out, their heads highly abstracted in a sculptural manner characteristic of Moore’s drawings of the late 1920s and 30s. Their skeletal aspect closely corresponds with his transformation drawings inspired by found natural objects such as pebbles, shells and bones, which were then metamorphosed into sculptural forms. The luminous, rough textured appearance of the white, wax crayon extends the organic correlation, the effect of his palette as Geoffrey Grigson stated, like ‘the lichen on the grey rock, the coloured texture of weather-worn stone’ (cited in C. Stephens (ed.), Henry Moore, exh cat, Tate Publishing, London, 2010, p. 165). Moore has also introduced two shades of green into lines and areas of each figure, perhaps a further suggestion of nature outside the shelter or the unnatural phosphorescence of electric light. Three Women in a Shelter was executed on a page of Moore’s horizontal notebook in 1941. There are twelve known drawings attributed to the notebook,4 which was subsequently disbound, most likely in preparation for the artist’s first solo exhibition in American at the Bucholtz Gallery, New York, in May 1943. Though no list of the forty exhibited drawings exists, the majority of pages from the notebook are now in private and public collections in the USA, including the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California and The Art Institute of Chicago.
1 The Henry Moore Foundation acquired Hoglands in 2004 and opened it to the public in 2007. 2 David Mellor suggests that Moore also used news reportage photography as a source for his imagery. David Alan Mellor, “And Oh! The Stench’: Spain, The Blitz, Abjection and the Shelter Drawings’, Henry Moore, exh cat, Tate Publishing, 2010, pp. 52–63. 3 Moore executed several drawings representing The Fates winding wool, one of which would later be translated into tapestry [AG 48.27]. See Ann Garrould (ed.), Henry Moore, Complete Drawings 1940–1949, vol. 3, Lund Humphries, Aldershot, 2001, p. 284. 4 See Ann Garrould (ed.), Henry Moore, The Complete Drawings 1940–1949, vol. 3, London, 2001, pp. 81–83.
16 Shelter Drawing: Seated Mother and Child
Signed Moore and inscribed ‘Fill in corners with/Neutral Grey w/col’ Pencil, wax crayon, coloured crayon, watercolour, pastel, gouache, pen and ink on paper: 14 ⅜ x 11 in / 36.4 x 27.9 cm Framed size: 23 ¼ x 19 1/2 in / 59.1 x 49.5 cm Executed c.1941 Recorded in the Henry Moore Foundation archives as HMF 1861a P R OV E N A N C E
Private collection, UK, 1950s, then by descent Richard Green, London E XHIBITED
Spain, Barcelona, Fundacio “la Caixa”, Henry Moore, 18th July – 15th October 2006 London, Tate Britain, Henry Moore, 24th February – 8th August 2010; then travelled to The Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 23rd October 2010 - 6th February 2011 and Leeds Art Gallery, 4th March – 12th June 2011, cat. no. 103 L I T E R AT U R E
Chris Stephens (ed.), Henry Moore, exhibition catalogue, Tate Publishing, London, 2010, cat. no. 103, p. 171, illustrated in colour R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY, F O R S A L E
When Sir Kenneth Clark, Director of the National Gallery and Chairman of the War Artists’ Advisory Committee, was shown the first shelter sketchbook, he persuaded Moore to reconsider becoming a War Artist. Roughly sixty-five finished drawings were enlarged from the shelter sketchbook studies, seventeen of which were purchased by the WAAC and following their exhibition at the National Gallery in London were distributed amongst English museums. Moore was already a successful artist, but the public reception of these drawings effected an immediate change in the perception of his work and he was able to make a living without the support of teaching for the first time. This also marked a turning point in the course of his work: ‘Without the war, which directed one to life itself... I think I would have been a far less sensitive and responsible person – if I had ignored all that and went on working just as before. The war brought out and encouraged the humanist side in one’s work’ (the artist cited in Roger Berthoud, The Life of Henry Moore, Faber and Faber, London, 1987, p. 176). Moore revisited and reworked some of his most successful shelter compositions, such as Woman Seated in the Underground, 1941 (Tate Gallery, presented by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee in 1946), in a more naturalistic and
technically sophisticated style. The present work combines two different aspects of the underground scenes and the artist’s favourite motifs: the mother and child and reclining figures. Seated on a bench against a brick-coloured wall, Moore’s mother is intricately described with a dense structure of black ink over white crayon with touches of yellow; her form whole, her features clear and expressive. The fingers of her right hand are held against her breast holding those of her child, her left hand holding the bowl and spoon with which she has been feeding him. Prefiguring Moore’s later series of Madonna and Child studies on paper and in sculpture (the vortex-like tunnel behind also a receding halo), the figures embody familial devotion and the heroism of humanity in the face of apocalyptic fear. As seen in the previous work, Moore’s use of drapery was important in establishing the substance and poise of his figures, a result of his study of classical sculpture. Referring to a marble Nereid from Xanthos in Lycia, c. 400BC, he commented, ‘The drapery here is so sensitively carved that it gives the impression of light, flimsy material, wet with spray, being blown against the body by the wind. It shows how drapery can reveal the form more effectively than if the figure were nude because it can emphasise the prominent parts of the body,
and falls slackly in the hollows. This is something I learned when I came to do the Shelter drawings, in which all the figures are draped’ (Henry Moore, Henry Moore at the British Museum, British Museum Publications Ltd., London, 1981, p. 62). Diminishing into the distance behind the woman’s left shoulder, the underground tunnel is lined with the draped, sculptural forms of reclining figures. Moore produced at least ten variations of the tube tunnel perspective in various colour combinations in his Large Shelter Sketchbook of 1941. The swirling vortex depicts the extension to Liverpool Street Underground, which the artist found the most visually arresting of stations: ‘The new tunnel had been completed except for the rails and at night its entire length was occupied by a double row of sleeping figures’ (the artist cited in John Hedgecoe and Henry Moore, Henry Moore, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1968, p. 140). This drawing is very similar in size and format to Shelter scene, c. 1942, in the collection of Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut. Both works are thought to belong to a group of eight shelter drawings ‘drawn in the middle of large paper sheets, each originally 380 x 280 mm, allowing for a wide border to be covered by a curved mount’.1 Other pages from this group are in the collections of the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago; The Henry Moore Foundation; the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection, University of East Anglia, Norwich and the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven. Interweaving more than five different media, this beautiful drawing creates an incredible sense of depth with the layering of washes and the density of line, projecting the central figures forth via the wax resist technique: ‘I sketched with pen and ink, wax crayons and watercolour, using the wax-resist technique which I had discovered by accident before the war. I had been doing a drawing for my three-year old niece using two or three wax crayons. Wishing to add some colour, I found a box of watercolour paints and was delighted to see the watercolour run off the parts of the drawing that had a surface of wax. It was like magic and I found it very useful when doing my sketch books’ (the artist cited in J. Hedgecoe and H. Moore, ibid., p. 140). The shelter drawings, Lord Clark later said, ‘showed not only insight and compassion but marvellous graphic skill. Since circumstances kept him from his sculpture, he became, in effect, a painter’ (cited in A. Garrould, Henry Moore Drawings, Thames and Hudson, London, 1988, pp. 18–20).
1 ‘It is known that Heinz Roland [of Roland, Browse and Delbanco gallery] used this style of mounting, and it is likely that Moore made these drawings at his request…c1942’ (A. Garrould, op. cit., p.106).
17 Reclining Figures: Ideas for Stone Sculpture
Signed and dated Moore 44; inscribed with the date and ‘Reclining Figures (Drawing for Carving)’ on the reverse Wax crayon, watercolour wash, pencil, pen and ink on paper: 161/2 x 22 3/8 in / 42 x 56.8 cm Framed size: 25 ¼ x 31 ⅛ in / 64.1 x 79.1 cm Recorded in the Henry Moore Foundation archives as HMF 2262 P R OV E N A N C E
Zika Ascher, London, acquired directly from the artist by 1944 Marlborough Fine Art, Ltd., London [XLOS 7446] Hubertus Wald, Hamburg, 19th November 1970 The Hubertus Wald Charitable Foundation Richard Green, London E XHIBITED
Paris, Musée d’Art Modeme, organised by UNESCO, Exposition Internationale d’Art Modeme, 18th November – 28th December 1946, no. 32, p. 56 London, Tate Gallery, arranged by The Arts Council of Great Britain on the occasion of The Festival of Britain 1951, Sculpture and drawings by Henry Moore, 2nd May – 29th July 1951, no. 104 Berlin, Haus am Waldsee, Henry Moore: Zeichnungen und kleine Plastik, September 1951, no. 50; this exhibition later travelled to Vienna and Linz Basle, 1955 Hamburg, Kunsthalle, Sammlung Wald, September – November 2003 L I T E R AT U R E
Herbert Read, Sculpture and Drawings 1921 – 1948, vol. I, Lund Humphries, London, 1949, illustrated pl. 237 Robert Melville, Henry Moore, Sculpture and Drawings 1921–1969, Thames and Hudson, London, 1970, p. 352, no. 339, illustrated Ann Garrould (ed.), Henry Moore, Complete Drawings 1940–49, Vol. 3, The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries, Aldershot, 2001, p. 230, no. 44.78, illustrated in colour pl. XXV R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY, F O R S A L E
Like Barbara Hepworth in St Ives, Moore produced no sculpture for a period of almost two years from mid-1940, working exclusively on paper. Following his commission from the War Artists' Advisory Committee for the shelter drawings, he undertook a second commission documenting the coal-mining industry in Yorkshire at the suggestion of Herbert Read. Upon completion of the project by the summer of 1942, Moore was eager to return to drawing as ‘a means of generating ideas for sculpture, tapping oneself for the initial idea; and as a way
of sorting out ideas and developing them’ (the artist cited in A. Wilkinson, The Drawings of Henry Moore, exh cat, The Tate Gallery, London, 1977, p. 21). In the present work, Moore has executed six variations on the theme of the reclining figure from his imagination undergoing a series of organic transformations from the most naturalistic example centre right to the most abstract form beneath it. The metamorphosis of these figures can also be linked to the artist’s
transformation drawings of the 1930s. As Moore explained in his statement for Unit One in 1934: ‘The human figure is what interests me most deeply, but I have found principles of form and rhythm from the study of natural objects such as pebbles, rocks, bones, trees, plants, etc. Pebbles and rocks show nature’s way of working stone…and the principal of asymmetry…Bones have a marvellous structural strength and hard tenseness of form, subtle transition of one shape into the next and great variety in section’ (cited in A. Wilkinson, ibid., p. 24). The transition from observed natural objects into biomorphic forms was also a reflection of Moore’s knowledge of contemporary developments in Paris, in particular the work Picasso and Arp. This affinity explains Moore’s association with the Surrealist Movement while simultaneously exhibiting amongst the geometric abstraction of constructivist Modernism. The influence of Moore’s wartime drawings of shelterers and coalminers can be seen in the continuance of a subterranean setting, each frontal form confined to a claustrophobic catacomb-like space, as well as his ‘mysterious fascination’ with ‘caves in hillsides and cliffs’ (the artist in D. Sylvester (ed.), Henry Moore Complete Sculpture, 1921–48, Vol. I, Lund Humphries, London, 1990, p. XXXIV). The figures appear to form an elemental part of their surrounding environment, integrated into the landscape as the organic materials which inspired them. The moss green surround sustains the natural aesthetic, as does the rich surface texture suggesting the appearance of earth and stone. Although there are formal affinities with a number of reclining figures of the 1940s and early 1950s,1 the figures are not preparatory studies for specific sculptures, but ideas in development. This drawing bears a strong resemblance to the somewhat smaller Reclining Figures: Ideas for Stone Sculpture, 1944 [HMF 2261] in the collection of the University of Colorado, Denver, also based on a horizontal format divided into six subterranean sections to present ideas for reclining sculpture. From the outset of his career, Moore considered drawing a fundamental skill for any sculptor. He once stated: ‘Drawing is everything. If somebody comes to me and says There is a young sculptor and he’s going to be very good – would you like to see his work? I say, What’s his drawing like? Oh, he doesn’t draw. Well then, I know he’s no good. All the sculptors who have been any good have been great draughtsmen. Drawing is enough if you do it well’ (cited in H. Moore and J. Hedgecoe, Henry Moore, my ideas, inspiration and life as an artist, Ebury Press, London, p. 96). Later as the artist’s materials and methods changed, the fixed, single view of a sculptural idea on paper became inhibiting: ‘Because now I am aiming at sculpture that is truly three-dimensional, I want it to vary from whatever angle I look at it. Although it is a unified idea, it is not symmetrical. To explain its shape by drawing I should require at least twenty or thirty drawings…And so I prefer to work out my ideas in the form of small maquettes which I can hold in my hand and look at from every point of view (the artist cited in A. Wilkinson, The Drawings of Henry Moore, exh cat, Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1977, p. 45).
1 The central figure on the right is linked in the 1951 exhibition catalogue to a maquette for the Memorial Figure at Darlington Hall, Devon. See Sculpture and Drawings by Henry Moore, exh cat, Tate Gallery, London, 1951, pp. 15,19.
18 Stringed Figure
Signed Moore and numbered 2/8 on the lower back Bronze and red string: 6 ⅞ x 8 in / 17.5 x 20.3 cm On an ebonised wood base Cast 2 from an edition of 8 plus two artist’s copies Conceived in 1939 and cast at The Art Bronze Foundry, London LH 207 P R OV E N A N C E
Leo S. McDonald, Chicago, Illinois Richard Green, London L I T E R AT U R E
Robert Melville, Henry Moore, Sculpture and Drawings 1921–1969, Thames and Hudson, London, 1970, no. 204 (another cast illustrated) James Johnson Sweeny & The Museum of Modern Art, Henry Moore, New York, 1946, p. 58 (another cast illustrated) Will Grohmann, The Art of Henry Moore, New York, 1960, no. 78 (another cast illustrated) David Sylvester, Henry Moore, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London, 1968, p. 104 (another cast illustrated) Henry Moore: Sculptures, exhibition catalogue, Galerie Beyeler, Basel, 1970, no. 1 (another cast illustrated) Franco Russoli & David Mitchinson, Henry Moore, Sculpture, New York, 1981, nos. 126 & 128, p. 76 (another cast illustrated) Alan Bowness (ed.), Henry Moore, Complete Sculpture 1921–48, Vol. I, Lund Humphries, London, 1986, p. 12, no. 207, p. 113 (another cast illustrated) Tōkyō-to Bijutsukan & Fukuoka-shi Bijutsukan, The Art of Henry Moore: Sculptures, Drawings and Graphics, exhibition catalogue, Tokyo, 1986, no. 154, p. 117 (another cast illustrated) Chris Stephens (ed.), Henry Moore, exhibition catalogue, Tate Publishing, London, 2010, no. 72, p. 148 (plaster illustrated) R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY, F O R S A L E
Between 1937 and 1939 Moore produced some of his most experimental sculptures including a series of stringed figures inspired by the mathematical models at the Science Museum in South Kensington: ‘Whilst a student at the R.C.A. I became involved in machine art, which in those days had its place in modern art. Although I was interested in the work of Léger, and the Futurists, who exploited mechanical forms, I was never directly influenced by machinery as such. Its interest for me lies in its capacity for movement, which, after all, is its function. I was fascinated by the mathematical models I saw there, which had been made to illustrate the difference of the form that is halfway between a square and a circle…It wasn’t the scientific study of these models but the ability to look through the strings as with a bird cage and to see one form within
another which excited me’ (cited in J. Hedgecoe and H. Moore, Henry Spencer Moore, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1968, p. 105). It is likely that Moore was also influenced in this experimental phase by the work of Naum Gabo, whom he met in London in 1935 and exhibited alongside at the Abstract and Concrete show in Oxford the following year.1 Moore’s stringed sculptures, including Bird Basket, 1939 (The Henry Moore Foundation), The Bride, 1939–40 (Museum of Modern Art, New York) and Stringed Figure, 1939 (Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum, Japan), combined wood, lead or bronze with string or wire to create dramatic internal spaces simultaneously enclosed and revealed, the strings imparting ‘a metaphorical as
well as an actual tension’ (C. Stephens, Henry Moore, exh cat, Tate Publishing, London, 2010, p. 127). The organic, curvilinear figure in the present work provides a dynamic contrast to the geometric shapes created by the taut string, revealing Moore’s fascination with the interplay between interior and exterior forms. The first version of Stringed Figure, 1939 was made in lead and wire (private collection, New York) and appears in a drawing of Ideas for Sculpture in Metal and Wire, 1939 (private collection). The use of red string in this work corresponds with an earlier drawing of sculptural forms which display interiors of the same colour. Dated two years before the sculpture was made, Five Figures in a Setting, 1937 (Henry Moore Family Collection) depicts a preliminary design for Stringed Figure in the second form from the left. The figures are arranged in a line against a somewhat sinister stage-set marked with geometric forms, further demonstrating the seemingly paradoxical blend of abstraction and surrealism in the artist’s work. Moore exhibited at (and helped to organise) the International Surrealist Exhibition at New Burlington Galleries in 1936 and the following year railed against the unnecessary ‘violent quarrel between the abstractionists and the surrealists…All good art has contained both abstract and surrealist elements, just as it has contained both classical and romantic elements – order and surprise, intellect and imagination, conscious and unconscious. Both sides of the artist’s personality must play their part’ (the artist cited in D Sylvester (ed.), Henry Moore, Complete Sculpture 1921–48, vol. 1, Lund Humphries, London, 1990, p. xxxv).
1 Christa Lichtenstern proposed that Moore may also have been aware of Man Ray’s photographs of mathematical models published in Cahiers d’Art, vol.11, no.s 1–2, 1936, pp. 7–9, 11–20, C. Lichtenstern, Henry Moore: Work, Theory, Reception, London, 2008, p. 90, cited in C. Stephens (ed.), Henry Moore, exh cat, Tate Publishing, London, 2010, p. 231.
19 Madonna and Child
Signed Moore and numbered 1/6 on the back of the bench. Also stamped with the foundry mark ‘NOACK BERLIN’ on the back, lower left Bronze with a brown patina: 6 ¼ in / 15.9 cm height On a marble base Cast 1 from an edition of 6 Conceived in terracotta in 1943 and cast in 1955 LH 219 P R OV E N A N C E
Marlborough Fine Art, London Private collection, UK, 1966, acquired at the 1966 exhibition Richard Green, London E XHIBITED
London, Marlborough Fine Art, Henry Moore, July – August 1966, no. 5, illustrated L I T E R AT U R E
David Sylvester (ed.), Henry Moore Complete Sculpture 1921–48, Vol. I, Lund Humphries, London, 1990, p. 13, no. 219, p. 138 (terracotta illustrated) O N LOA N F R O M T H E R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY C O LL E C T I O N
The present work was cast from a terracotta model made in 1943 for the Horton stone Madonna and Child at the Parish Church of St Matthew’s, Northampton, which Moore described as ‘one of the most difficult and heartsearching sculptures that I ever tried to do’ (the artist cited in J. Hedgecoe and H. Moore, Henry Spencer Moore, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1968, p. 159). Having seen Moore’s Shelter Drawings, the Rev. Walter Hussey (later Dean of Chichester) commissioned the sculpture to commemorate the half-centenary of the church, giving the artist his first opportunity to carve in stone since the start of the war.1 Despite the clear correspondence of the subject to his preoccupation with the Mother and Child theme, the gravity of the commission made Moore apprehensive and he insisted upon months of preparatory drawing and approximately twelve clay models before being satisfied that his idea could be realised.
tried to give a sense of complete easiness and repose, as though the Madonna could stay in that position for ever (as being in stone, she will have to do)’ (the artist cited in D. Sylvester (ed.), op cit., p. XXV).
‘I began thinking of the ‘Madonna and Child’ for St Matthew’s considering in what ways a ‘Madonna and Child’ differs from a carving of just a ‘Mother and Child’ – that is, by considering how in my opinion religious art differs from secular art. It’s not easy to describe in words what this difference is, except by saying in general terms that the ‘Madonna and Child’ should have an austerity and a nobility, and some touch of grandeur (even hieratic aloofness) which is missing in the everyday ‘Mother and Child’ idea. Of the sketches and models I have done, the one chosen has I think a quiet dignity and gentleness. I have
Moore created another Madonna and Child for St Peter’s Church, Claydon in 1948–49 (now at St Mary’s Church, Barham), commissioned by Sir Jasper Ridley as a memorial to his son and three other villagers killed during the Second World War.
Seated on a low stool with her child in her lap, Mary looks over the head of her son while holding him protectively in place. The posture of the figures had been determined, though the positioning of limbs and the level of detail would alter in the finished work. Even at this early, impressionistic stage of the commission’s conception, the figure’s solemnity is established in her poise and expression. The naturalistic treatment of this figurative subject marked a distinct departure from the abstract experimentation of Moore’s pre-war work. The intimate familial arrangement foreshadows his post-war family groups of parents interacting with and protecting their children.
1 He also commissioned Benjamin Britten to compose a cantata for the celebration.
20 Family Group
Signed Moore on the back of the bench Bronze with a brown and green patina: 5 5∕16 in / 13.5 cm height On a slate base Cast from an unnumbered edition of 7 plus one artist’s copy Conceived in terracotta in 1944 and cast in 1945 by Charles Gaskin, The Art Bronze Foundry, London LH 227 P R OV E N A N C E
Waddington Galleries, London Private collection, Europe, circa 1995, acquired from the above Richard Green, London L I T E R AT U R E
Herbert Read, Henry Moore Sculpture and Drawings, Lund Humphries and Company, London, 1949, no. 106e (another cast illustrated) Will Grohmann, The Art of Henry Moore, Thames and Hudson, London, 1960, p.8, no. 120 (another cast illustrated) Alan Bowness (ed.), Henry Moore, Sculpture and Drawings: Sculpture 1921–48, London, 1965, vol. I, p. 143, no. 227 (another cast illustrated) Robert Melville, Henry Moore Sculpture and Drawings 1921–1969, Thames and Hudson, London, 1970, no. 316 (stone version illustrated) David Sylvester (ed.), Henry Moore Complete Sculpture 1921–48, Vol. I, Lund Humphries, London, 1990, p. 14, no. 227, p. 143 (terracotta illustrated) R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY, F O R S A L E
This small scale Family Group was cast in bronze from a terracotta model Moore made for a public commission for Village College Impington, suggested by the architect Walter Gropius in the late 1930s. The school aimed to employ the progressive educational ideas of Henry Morris, the Director for Education in Cambridgeshire, in particular that rural schools should provide facilities for parents as well as children, providing space for films, plays and lectures, so as to become the social centre of the community. This notion of family unity was to be realised in Moore’s sculpture.1 Postponed by the advent of War, Moore returned to the idea in 1944 when the commission was temporarily revived and began making ‘drawings in note book form of family groups. From these notebook drawings I made a number small of maquettes…Some of the maquettes were ideas for bronze, but most of them were for stone because for the Impington school I felt stone would be the suitable material’ (the artist cited in A. Wilkinson, (ed.), Henry Moore: Writings and Conversations, Lund Humphries, Aldershot, 2002, p. 273). Moore developed a number of versions on the theme between the autumn of 1944 and the spring of 1945, one of which is the collection of the Tate.
Moore was inspired by the family group from the early 1940s, though it has been customary to attribute his interest in the subject to the longed-for birth of his only child Mary in 1946. Following the end of the Second World War, Moore’s Family Group sculptures took on even greater significance as symbols of familial strength, protection and nurturing. The three member family naturally evolved from the artist’s Mother and Child theme, which had appealed to Moore because of its significance throughout the history of art, for the emotive relationship it represented and for its potential for formal development between figures. In 1954–5, the artist carved an enlarged version of the present work in Hadene stone measuring 64 1/2 inches, which became known as the Harlow Family Group.
1 A detailed account of the commission is recalled by the artist in Philip James, Henry Moore on Sculpture, MacDonald, London, 1966, pp. 224–229.
21 Family Group
Signed Moore on the back of the bench Bronze with a green patina: 5 5∕16 in / 13.5 cm height On a slate base Cast from an unnumbered edition of 7 plus one artist’s copy Conceived in terracotta in 1944 and cast in 1945 by Charles Gaskin, The Art Bronze Foundry, London LH 227 P R OV E N A N C E
The Hanover Gallery, London The Hon. Mrs Reginald Fellowes, UK, acquired from the above on 4th April 1950, then by descent Richard Green, London L I T E R AT U R E
Herbert Read, Henry Moore Sculpture and Drawings, Lund Humphries and Company, London, 1949, no. 106e (another cast illustrated) Will Grohmann, The Art of Henry Moore, Thames and Hudson, London, 1960, p.8, no. 120 (another cast illustrated) Alan Bowness (ed.), Henry Moore, Sculpture and Drawings: Sculpture 1921–48, London, 1965, vol. I, p. 143, no. 227 (another cast illustrated) Robert Melville, Henry Moore Sculpture and Drawings 1921–1969, Thames and Hudson, London, 1970, no. 316 (stone version illustrated) David Sylvester (ed.), Henry Moore Complete Sculpture 1921–48, Vol. I, Lund Humphries, London, 1990, p. 14, no. 227, p. 143 (terracotta illustrated) O N LOA N F R O M T H E R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY C O LL E C T I O N
This Family Group is cast from the same terracotta model as the previous catalogue entry, the bronze surface finished with a vibrant green patina demonstrating the diverse effects achievable with the medium. While maintaining respect for the inherent characteristics of each material, Moore expanded his approach beyond direct carving to explore the new possibilities available through casting. The artist learnt much about the qualities of bronze by casting his own small-scale works using the ‘lost wax’ method in a miniature foundry at the bottom of his garden. Moore cast his own works for a year before employing professional foundries in London and Berlin, which enabled him to concentrate on sculpting. Moore worked on all of his bronze sculptures after they returned from the foundry and described the ‘exciting but tricky’ process of patination: ‘A new cast to begin with is just like a new-minted penny, with a kind of slight tarnished effect on it…Bronze is very sensitive to chemicals, and bronze naturally in the open air (particularly near the sea) will turn with time and the action of the atmosphere to a beautiful green. But sometimes one can’t wait for nature to
have its go at the bronze, and you can speed it up by treating the bronze with different acids which will produce different effects…afterwards you can then work on the bronze, work on the surface and let the bronze come through again, after you’ve made certain patinas. You rub it and wear it down as your hand might by a lot of handling. From this point of view bronze is a most responsive and unbelievably varied material, and it will go on being a favourite material for sculptors. You can, in bronze, reproduce any other material you care to’ (cited in Philip James, Henry Moore on Sculpture, MacDonald, London, 1966, p. 140). Though the figures in this sculpture have basic markings for facial features, their robust forms are deftly modelled and cleverly combined in the undulating contours of parental shoulders and the fabric draped across their knees. The solid, forward facing figures are naked apart from the band of cloth whose incised lines are echoed in the definition of the man’s chest and ribs, and in the articulation of fingers which provides a further connection between family members; the father's hand on the mother’s shoulder, the mother’s hands around her child.
22 Family Group
Signed Moore and numbered 3/9 on the back at the base of the bench Bronze with a green patina: 5 ⅞ in / 14.9 cm height On a slate base Cast 3 from an edition of 9 plus one artist’s copy Conceived in terracotta in 1945 and cast in 1969 LH 237 P R OV E N A N C E
Jeffrey H. Loria & Co., New York Private Collection, 1970, acquired from the above Sale, Christie’s, New York, 9th November 2000, lot 271 James Goodman Gallery, New York Sidney E. Frank, USA Richard Green, London L I T E R AT U R E
David Sylvester (ed.), Henry Moore Complete Sculpture 1921–1948, Vol. I, Lund Humphries, London, 1990, no. 237, p. 15 (terracotta illustrated) Ionel Jianou, Henry Moore, Paris, 1968, no. 234, p. 74 (terracotta illustrated) Franco Russoli & David Mitchinson, Henry Moore Sculpture, London, 1981, no. 177, p. 94 (another cast illustrated) (catalogued as an edition of 8) O N LOA N F R O M T H E R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY C O LL E C T I O N
With subtle changes to position and posture, Moore expressed a range of interrelations within his family group studies. Centred on the tentative standing form of the young child, the insular trio in this work appears both more dynamic and more intense as the parents look and turn towards the infant, supporting it with their arms. The sense of movement is further enhanced by the irregularity of the surface which seems to ripple in the light as the mother and father react to the vitality of their growing child. Notwithstanding the stimulus of his public commissions, Moore was fascinated by the subject of the mother and child throughout his career and executed numerous versions in a wide variety of media: ‘From very early on I have had an obsession with the Mother and Child theme. It has been a universal theme from the beginning of time and some of the earliest sculptures we’ve found from the Neolithic Age are of a Mother and Child... (Later on, I did the same with the Reclining Figure theme!) So that I was conditioned, as it were, to see it in everything. I suppose it could be explained as a “Mother” complex’ (the artist cited in J. Hedgecoe and H. Moore, Henry Spencer Moore, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1968, p. 61). At this time the subject had a particular resonance for Moore and his wife who longed to start a family, but had suffered a number of miscarriages.1 Moore’s family, in particular his female relatives, were very
important to him, his mother, sister and wife acting as models for many of his works. When Henry and Irina finally had a daughter on the 7th March 1946, they named her Mary after her grandmother and aunt. The artist later explained the personal nature of the series’ origin: ‘The family group ideas were all generated by drawings: and that was perhaps because the whole family group idea was so close to one as a person; we were just going to have our first child, Mary, and it was an obsession’ (D. Sylvester, ‘Henry Moore Talking’, Listener, vol. 70, no. 1796, 29th August 1963, cited in C. AllemandCosneau, M. Fath and D. Mitchinson (ed.), Henry Moore From the Inside Out: Plasters, Carvings and Drawings, Prestel, Munich, 1996, p.112).
1 See Ann Garrould (ed.), Henry Moore: Complete Drawings 1940–49, vol. III, Lund Humphries, Aldershot, 2001, p. x).
23 Family Group
Signed Moore on the base and again on the base of the bench Bronze with a green patina: 5 ⅛ in / 13 cm height On a slate base Cast from an unnumbered edition of 7 Conceived in terracotta in 1945 and cast by Charles Gaskin, The Art Bronze Foundry, London LH 239 P R OV E N A N C E
Berkeley Gallery, London Sir Duncan Oppenheim, acquired from the above in July 1945 Richard Green, London L I T E R AT U R E
David Sylvester, ‘The Evolution of Henry Moore’s Sculpture’, Burlington Magazine, XC, 1948, p. 193, 51, III David Sylvester (ed.), Henry Moore Complete Sculpture 1921–48, Vol I, Lund Humphries, London, 1990, p. 15, no. 239 Ionel Jianou, Henry Moore, Paris, 1968, p. 74, no. 226 O N LOA N F R O M T H E R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY C O LL E C T I O N
Moore was delighted in 1947 to receive a second public commission for a family group from John Newson, the Director of Education for Hertfordshire, for Barclay Secondary School, as it provided an opportunity to realise his ideas on the subject on a large scale. Having visited the site, Moore chose from his previous models on the theme, enlarging a terracotta maquette of 1945 from which the present work was cast.1 Moore made four large bronze Family Groups for the project during 1948–49, the main sculpture situated at Barclay School, Stevenage, with the other three in the collections of the Tate Gallery, London; the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the private collection of Nelson Rockefeller, New York. The present bronze is very close to the final work, differing only in the head of the male: ‘In the small version the split head of the man gives a vitality and interest necessary to the composition, particularly as all three heads have only slight indications of features. When it came to the life-size version, the figures each became obviously human and related to each other and the split head of the man became impossible, for it was so unlike the woman and the child’ (the artist cited in C. Allemand-Cosneau, M. Fath & D. Mitchinson (ed.), Henry Moore: From the Inside Out, Plasters, Carvings and Drawings, Prestel, Munich, 1996, p. 113).
1 The terracotta maquette was given by the artist to The Henry Moore Foundation in 1977.
The distinction between the male and female in the present work is also emphasised in the representation of their legs. While in the earlier three figure family groups the fabric lying across their thighs unites the parents, here it is wrapped tightly around the mother’s lower limbs while the father’s are left unconstrained. The gaps between his legs and hers reveal the opening beneath the bench which had in previous versions been solid. The increase in light and space around the figures emphasises their greater flexibility as they twist towards their child, their arms interlocking, ‘forming a knot between them, tying the three into a family unity’ (the artist cited in J. Hedgecoe and H. Moore, Henry Spencer Moore, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1968, p. 177).
24 Family Group
Bronze with a brown patina: 5 ⅞ in / 14.9 cm height On a slate base Cast from an unnumbered edition of 9 plus one artist’s copy Conceived in terracotta in 1944 and cast by Fiorini in 1956 LH 233 P R OV E N A N C E
Gallery Kasahara, Osaka, Japan Private collection, acquired from the above circa 1990 Richard Green, London L I T E R AT U R E
David Sylvester (ed.), Henry Moore Complete Sculpture 1921–1948, Vol. I, Lund Humphries, London, 1990, p. 14, no. 233, p. 147 (another cast illustrated) David Mitchinson, (ed.), Henry Moore Sculpture with comments by the artist, London, 1981, no. 170, p. 94 (another cast illustrated) Michael Parke-Taylor, A Monumental Vision, The Sculpture of Henry Moore, 1998, no. 236, p. 210 (another cast illustrated) O N LOA N F R O M T H E R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY C O LL E C T I O N
Conceived in terracotta in 1944 and cast in 1956, this Family Group is more polished than the previous entries, the smooth brown patina occasionally revealing touches of bronze. The delicate features of the parents are more developed, their noses, brows and hairstyles defined. Unlike previous versions, the adults are fully clothed (the mother’s shawl recalling the shell of Moore’s interior-exterior forms), although their legs are covered with a similar, horizontally striped drapery. As in Hepworth’s Four Forms, Moore uses the group to explore the interrelation of figures, the balance between individuality and unity. The family of four connects in a similar way to the smaller groupings, the father’s hand resting on the mother’s shoulder, but their association is less static, their presentation less frontal, the bench curving so that the figures are turned towards each other with their legs overlapping and interlocked. The children represent opposing states of action and inaction, one climbing up to drape its arms around its father, the other sitting quietly in its mother’s lap. The addition of a second child to this sophisticated assembly recalls the emphasis on family at the heart of the community in Moore’s public commissions for progressive schools. Susan Compton has suggested that Moore’s concentration on the family groups ‘consolidates his move towards a wider and more humanist approach appropriate for public sculpture. Originally trained as a school teacher himself, his imagination was fired by the ideal of the extension of education to all sectors of the community’ (cited in Susan Compton, Henry Moore, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1988, p. 224).
25 Reclining Figure (Maquette for Memorial Figure, Dartington Hall)
Signed Moore H on the back, lower right Bronze with a green patina: 7 in / 17.8 cm length On a slate base Cast from an unnumbered edition of 7 Conceived in terracotta in 1945 and cast c. 1945-46 LH 242 P R OV E N A N C E
Leicester Galleries, London Private collection, UK, acquired at the 1946 exhibition Richard Green, London E XHIBITED
London, Leicester Galleries, Living with Irish Art: New Sculpture and Drawings by Henry Moore, October 1946, no. 3 L I T E R AT U R E
David Sylvester (ed.), Henry Moore Sculpture and Drawings 1921–1948, Vol. I, Lund Humphries, London, 1990, p. 15, no. 242 (terracotta illustrated) O N LOA N F R O M T H E R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY C O LL E C T I O N
‘From the very beginning the reclining figure has been my main theme. The first one I made was around 1924, and probably more than half of my sculptures since then have been reclining figures’ (the artist cited in J. Hedgecoe and H. Moore, Henry Spencer Moore, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1968, p. 151). When Moore was commissioned by Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst to carve a memorial to his friend Christopher Martin, the Artistic Director at Dartington Hall, the reclining figure with its stability and sense of repose suggested itself as the most appropriate arrangement, Moore stating that, ‘It fits in with my belief that sculpture should be permanent, should last for eternity’ (the artist cited in P. James, Henry Moore on Sculpture, MacDonald, London, 1966, p. 264). Moore and Martin had met during the War (perhaps through Sir Kenneth Clark) when Moore became a member of the Visual Arts Group associated with the Arts Enquiry, a study of how the arts were organised in England and Wales which Martin initiated and ran. This bronze is one of several maquettes made in preparation for the almost life-sized Memorial Figure carved in Horton stone, although it differs from the finished work in the arrangement of dress and the position of the feet. The naturalistic style of this piece and the final sculpture recalls the dignified poise of the Northampton Madonna and Child, 1943–4. Moore discovered the perfect setting for the reclining figure in the grounds of
Dartington Hall and held it in mind as he created the maquettes to produce a work of sculpture in absolute harmony with the landscape loved by Martin: ‘The figure is a memorial to a friend who loved the quiet mellowness of this Devonshire landscape. It is situated at the top of a rise, and when one stands near it and takes in the shape of it in relation to the vista one becomes aware that the raised knee repeats or echoes the gentle roll of the landscape. I wanted it to convey a sense of permanent tranquillity, a sense of being from which the stir and fret of human ways had been withdrawn, and all the time I was working on it I was very much aware that I was making a memorial to go into an English scene that is itself a memorial to many generations of men who have engaged in a subtle collaboration with the land’ (the artist cited in P. James, ibid., 1966, p. 101). The drapery covering the recumbent woman also suggests the swelling forms of the Devonshire landscape, its deep folds likened by Moore, ‘with the form of mountains, which are the crinkled skin of the earth (cited in P. James, ibid., p. 231). Moore’s search for a figurative representation of ‘quiet stillness’ in harmony with its landscape setting parallels Hepworth’s intent to achieve a work of serenity in the unity of her figures in the landscape. Richard Cork suggests that the sculpture may also represent a memorial to Moore’s mother, who died the year before he started work on the commission (see Henry Moore, exh cat, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1988, p. 19).
26 Reclining Figure (Maquette for Reclining Figure, Cranbrook Academy of Art)
Signed Moore on the back, lower right Bronze: 6 ⅝ in / 16.8 cm length On an ebonised wood base Cast from an unnumbered edition of 7 Conceived in terracotta in 1945 LH 249 P R OV E N A N C E
Buchholz Gallery (Curt Valentin), New York Harry I Caesar, Salem Center, New York Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 12th May 1987, lot 337b Private collection, acquired at the above sale Richard Green, London E XHIBITED
New York, Buchholz Gallery, Henry Moore, 1951, no. 14 L I T E R AT U R E
David Sylvester (ed.), Henry Moore Complete Sculpture 1921–1948, Vol. I, Lund Humphries, London, 1990, no. 249, p. 16 R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY, F O R S A L E
At the same time as carving the gentle Memorial Figure for Dartington Hall, Moore was working on a dramatic Reclining Figure in elm wood for the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, for which the present work served as a maquette. The idea for the sculpture first appeared in Moore’s drawings from 1942: ‘I was catching up on the two years of sculpture time I had lost through the war and I had many accumulated ideas to get rid of. And so I was doing two sculptures at the same time although the two were completely different from each other in mood. Thus I was able to satisfy both sides of my nature’ (the artist cited in J. Hedgecoe and H. Moore, Henry Spencer Moore, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1968, p. 171). In contrast to the tranquillity of the memorial work, Moore felt this Reclining Figure, ‘with its big beating heart like a great pumping station’ expressed ‘more disturbing, more violent feelings’ (the artist in J. Hedgecoe, ibid., p. 171 and P. James, Henry Moore on Sculpture, MacDonald, 1966, p. 103). Distinct from the solid, classical naturalism of the Dartington Hall figure, Moore’s hollow elm wood sculpture signals a nostalgic return to the biomorphic forms associated with surrealism. Although in describing the work Moore made connections with machinery, the organic curvature of the contours and tonality of the bronze seem to reflect the natural material of the intended large-scale sculpture. In contrast to the upright head and neck of the figure, the horizontal
limbs call to mind Moore’s early transformation drawings, the top leg projecting over the lower, evoking the large branch of a tree stretching out from the trunk. The interweaving arms and legs create a series of holes and shadowy caverns in a complex interplay of space and mass, solid yet fluid form. Celia Houdart has interpreted the sculpture as a mother and foetus, the deep incisions in the place of eyes representing a ‘blinding’ or prevention of foresight relating to Post-War angst: ‘The mother looks towards the sky and her body is literally knotted up with anxiety for her child’ (C. Allemand-Cosneau, M. Fath and D. Mitchinson, Henry Moore From the Inside Out: Plasters, Carvings and Drawings, Prestel, Munich, 1996 p. 114).
27 Reclining Figure
Bronze with a black patina: 17 ¾ in / 45 cm length On a slate base Cast from an unnumbered edition of 7 Conceived in terracotta in 1945 LH 257 P R OV E N A N C E
Marlborough Fine Art, London, 1960 David Astor, acquired from the above, then by descent Richard Green, London E XHIBITED
Colombus, Ohio, Columbus Museum of Art, October–December 1984, travelling exhibition, Henry Moore, The Reclining Figure, illustrated no. 25 and 25a, p. 53 (another cast illustrated) London, Royal Academy of Arts, Henry Moore, September – December 1988, catalogue no. 105, p. 223, also illustrated p. 85 (another cast illustrated) L I T E R AT U R E
David Sylvester (ed.), Henry Moore Complete Sculpture 1921–48, Vol. I, Lund Humphries, London, 1990, p. 16, no. 257, p. 160 (another cast illustrated) Herbert Read, Henry Moore, A study of his life and work, London 1965, no. 143, p. 274, p. 165 (another cast illustrated) Ionel Jianou, Henry Moore, Paris, 1968, p. 75, no. 241, p. 88 (another cast illustrated) Robert Melville, Henry Moore, Sculpture and Drawings 1921–1969, Thames and Hudson, London, 1970, no. 350 (another cast illustrated) O N LOA N F R O M T H E R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY C O LL E C T I O N
The compositional and spatial freedom Moore experienced in the creation of the reclining figures is nowhere more apparent than in the present work. The flowing, asymmetric contours of this polished black bronze appear to undulate in the light as if in motion. Its curved apertures are revealed unexpectedly like eroded cavities in a sea-worn rock formation, juxtaposed with soft patches of light on the sculpture’s dark surface resembling pools of water. Moore’s early interest in the anthropomorphic qualities of natural forms such as pebbles, rocks and shells certainly influenced the organic development of this selfcontained figure.
The sculpture also calls to mind the body of a shelterer swathed in a blanket to pass the night on a platform floor. Referring to another cast of this work in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, Susan Compton has suggested that the artist’s ‘direct experience of the reclining figure had been enriched by observation in the London Underground...This had led to drawings of draped figures which perhaps inspired the sensuous fluidity of the perimeter line in this sculpture. Although schematised, the figure compels response to its delicate idea of containment; its shell-like form evokes an analogy with a womb rather than with the more aggressive and bone-like formations of pre-war Reclining Figures’ (cited in Henry Moore, exh cat, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1988, p. 223).
28 Working Model for Reclining Figure: Festival
Bronze with a green patina: 16 ¾ in / 42.5 cm length On a pine base Cast from an unnumbered edition of 7 plus one artist’s copy Conceived in terracotta and cast in 1950 LH 292 P R OV E N A N C E
The Leicester Galleries, London Peter Meyer, London, 1951, acquired from the above Richard Green, London E XHIBITED
London, Leicester Galleries, Henry Moore Exhibition New Bronzes and Drawings, May 1951, no. 6 London, Arts Council Gallery, Three Young Collectors, November – December 1952, no. 38; this exhibition travelled to Nottingham, Chapel Bar Gallery, December 1952 – January 1953; Bristol, City Art Gallery, January 1953; Lincoln Art Gallery, February 1953; Newcastle, Hatton Gallery, March 1953; and Arboath Art Gallery, April 1953 L I T E R AT U R E
Henry Moore Exhibition New Bronzes and Drawings, exhibition catalogue, Leicester Galleries, London, 1951, p. 9, no. 6, illustrated Alan Bowness (ed.), Henry Moore Complete Sculpture 1949–54, Vol. 2, Lund Humphries, London, 1986, p. 32, no. 292 (another cast illustrated) O N LOA N F R O M T H E R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY C O LL E C T I O N
This striking bronze was a working model for one of Moore’s most significant sculptures, the large Reclining Figure: Festival, 1951, commissioned by the Arts Council for the Festival of Britain (now in the collection of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh). Though the Arts Council originally requested a family group, Moore envisaged a reclining figure from a drawing in 1950 which developed into one of the most powerful works of his career and his first life-sized reclining bronze. For the artist the sculpture’s profundity lay in the progression of his stylistic development: ‘The Festival Reclining Figure is perhaps my first sculpture where the space and form are completely dependent on and inseparable from each other. I had reached the stage where I wanted my sculpture to be truly three-dimensional. In my earliest use of holes in sculpture, the holes were features in themselves. Now the space and the form are so naturally fused that they are one’ (the artist cited in J. Hedgecoe and H. Moore, Henry Spencer Moore, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1968, p. 188). The integration of space and form which Moore achieved in this work was largely a result of the use of bronze which enabled him to open up the sculpture
in a way impossible in wood or stone. The full-size figure also signifies a change in the artist’s working methods, being one of the first post-war sculptures made from a plaster working model, rather than terracotta or clay. From this time forth, plaster was Moore’s preferred modelling medium1. While the surface of this working model is coloured with the same green patina as the final sculpture, the figure lacks the series of inscribed lines like a cartographic design, which draws the eye along and through the lithe, twisting limbs. The conception of the figure as a public work with no fixed location (due to the temporary nature of the exhibition) may have provoked the assertive independence of the piece with spectacular views created within the work rather than against which it would be seen. Looking lengthways through the sculpture’s elegant interior, the balance between sinuous form and space recalls Moore’s enduring fascination for caves. 1 See Anita Feldman and Malcolm Woodward, Henry Moore: Plasters, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2011, p.54.
29 Reclining Figure No.5
Bronze with a green and brown patina: 8 1/2 in / 21.6 cm length On a pine base Cast from an unnumbered edition of 9 Conceived in plaster and cast in 1952 LH 333 P R OV E N A N C E
Eric Estorick, London Richard Green, London L I T E R AT U R E
Herbert Read, Henry Moore: A Study of his Life and Works, London, 1965, no. 165, illustrated p. 182 (another cast illustrated) Robert Melville, Henry Moore, Sculptures and Drawings 1921–1969, London, 1970, no. 433 (another cast illustrated) David Mitchinson, Henry Moore Sculpture, Editions Cercle d’art, Paris, 1984, no. 228, illustrated p. 115 (another cast illustrated) Alan Bowness (ed.), Henry Moore Complete Sculpture 1949–1954, Vol 2, Lund Humphries, London, 1986, no. 333, pp. 44, 45 (another cast illustrated) O N LOA N F R O M T H E R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY C O LL E C T I O N
The Festival of Britain commission, which coincided with a retrospective of Moore’s work at the Tate Gallery in 1951, promoted him not just as the country’s greatest living sculptor, but as Britain’s greatest living artist. Following the popular success of the Shelter drawings and a succession of public commissions, Moore found international recognition with a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in December 1946, which then toured America. In 1948 he won the International Prize for Sculpture at the 24th Venice Biennale. By the end of the 1950s, for him an intense period of inventiveness, Moore was established as the leading sculptor in the world. Moore’s enthusiasm for the reclining figure continued amidst a sequence of new themes during the decade, allowing him to pursue unexpected formal possibilities: ‘I want to be quite free of having to find a ‘reason’ for doing the Reclining Figures, and freer still of having to find a ‘meaning’ for them. The vital thing for an artist is to have a subject that allows to try out all kinds of formal ideas – things that he doesn’t yet know about for certain but wants to experiment with, as Cézanne did in his ‘Bathers’ series. In my case the reclining figure provides chances of that sort. The subject-matter is given. It’s settled for you, and you know it and like it, so that within it, within the subject that you’ve done a dozen times before, you are free to invent a completely new form-idea’ (the artist cited in John Russell, Henry Moore, Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, London 1968, p.28).
Having achieved the fusion of form and space in the momentous Reclining Figure: Festival, Moore used the flexibility of bronze to create a light sculpture full of vitality and movement in Reclining Figure No.5. The undulating ripples of the woman’s long, pleated skirt seem to billow in the breeze forming a wave over her knees. The curvature of her lower body tilting towards the front stands in dramatic contrast with the tense angularity of her bent arms and upright head. Another cast of this work is in the collection of The Art Institute of Chicago.
30 Maquette for Figure on Steps
Bronze with a brown patina: 6 1/2 in / 16.5 cm height Cast from an unnumbered edition of 10 plus one artist's copy Conceived in plaster and cast in 1956 LH 426 P R OV E N A N C E
Private collection, California James Goodman Gallery, New York Sidney E. Frank, USA Richard Green, London L I T E R AT U R E
Alan Bowness (ed.), Henry Moore Complete Sculpture 1955–64, Vol. 3, Lund Humphries, London, 2005, no. 426, p. 34 (another cast illustrated) O N LOA N F R O M T H E R I C H A R D G R E E N G A LL E RY C O LL E C T I O N
During the mid-1950s a series of public commissions (including a monumental sculpture for the UNESCO headquarters in Paris) inspired Moore to explore the integration of figurative sculpture in an architectural setting. As a result he created a group of drawings and maquettes which feature draped figures seated on or against geometric architectural elements such as benches and steps. While the setting of the seated figure was a departure for Moore, the draped figure recalled an interest apparent in his earlier shelter drawings. Moore’s interest was revitalised by his visit to Greece in 1951, inspiring a return to the study of drapery and its importance in the revelation of form: ‘Drapery can emphasise the tension in a figure, for where the form pushes outwards, such as on the shoulders, the thighs, the breasts, etc., it can be pulled tight across the form (almost like a bandage), and by contrast with the crumpled slackness of the drapery which lies between the salient points, the pressure from inside is intensified’ (the artist cited in P. James, Henry Moore on Sculpture, MacDonald, London, 1966, p. 231). Moore’s first draped figure conceived in bronze was the Reclining Figure commissioned for the Time-Life building in 1952–53, during which he developed a technique that undoubtedly informed the modelling of diaphanous material represented here: ‘gradually I evolved a treatment that exploited the fluidity of plaster. The treatment of drapery in my stone carvings was a matter of large, simple creases and folds but the modelling technique enabled me to build up large forms with a host of small crinklings and ruckings of the fabric’ (P. James, ibid., 1966, p. 230).
Other casts of Maquette for Figure on Steps are in the collections of the Tate Gallery and the Otter Gallery, University of Chichester. Large-scale versions of the Draped Seated Woman, 1957–58 are in the collections of the Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal, Germany and the Musée d’Art Moderne, Brussels, Belgium. Moore was made Companion of Honour in 1955 and appointed a Trustee of the National Gallery, London the same year.
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RICHARD GREEN Richard Green has assisted in the formation and development of numerous private and public collections.
UNITED KINGDOM Aberdeen: City Art Gallery Altrincham: Dunham Massey (NT) Barnard Castle: Bowes Museum Bedford: Cecil Higgins Museum Canterbury: Royal Museum and Art Gallery Cheltenham: Art Gallery and Museum Chester: The Grosvenor Museum Coventry: City Museum Dedham: Sir Alfred Munnings Art Museum Hampshire: County Museums Service Hull: Ferens Art Gallery Ipswich: Borough Council Museums and Galleries Leeds: Leeds City Art Gallery Lincoln: Usher Gallery Liskeard: Thorburn Museum London: Chiswick House (English Heritage) Department of the Environment The Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood The Museum of London National Maritime Museum National Portrait Gallery National Postal Museum Tate Britain The Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum Lydiard Tregoze: Lydiard House Norwich: Castle Museum Plymouth: City Museum and Art Gallery Richmond: London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and Orleans House Gallery St Helier: States of Jersey (Office) Southsea: Royal Marine Museum Stirling: Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum York: York City Art Gallery
CANADA Fredericton: Beaverbrook Art Gallery Ottawa: The National Gallery of Canada UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Boston, MA: Museum of Fine Arts Cincinnati, OH: Art Museum Gainesville, FL: Harn Museum of Art Houston, TX: Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation Los Angeles, CA: J Paul Getty Museum New Haven, CT: Yale Center for British Art New York, NY: Dahesh Museum Ocala, FL: The Appleton Museum of Art Omaha, NE: Joslyn Art Museum Pasadena, CA: Norton Simon Museum Rochester, NY: Genessee County Museum St Louis, MO: Missouri Historical Society Sharon, MA: Kendall Whaling Museum Toledo, OH: Toledo Museum of Art Ventura County, CA: Maritime Museum Washington, DC: The National Gallery The White House Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Winona, MN: Minnesota Marine Art Museum Worcester, MA: Worcester Art Museum BELGIUM Antwerp: Maisons Rockox Courtrai: City Art Gallery
FRANCE Compiègne: Musée National du Château GERMANY Berlin: Staatliche Kunsthalle Darmstadt: Hessisches Landesmuseum Hannover: Niedersachsisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe: Staatliche Kunsthalle Speyer am Rhein: Historisches Museum der Pfalz HOLLAND Amsterdam: Joods Historisch Museum Rijksmuseum Utrecht: Centraal Museum SOUTH AFRICA Durban: Art Museum SPAIN Madrid: Real Academia de Bellas Artes de Sun Fernando Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza Museo Nacional del Prado SWITZERLAND Zurich: Schweizerisches Landesmuseum THAILAND Bangkok: Museum of Contemporary Art
DENMARK Tröense: Maritime Museum EIRE Dublin: National Gallery of Ireland
Photographic acknowledgements Detail of Henry Moore on holiday at Happisburgh, Norfolk, 1931, with (from left) Ivon Hitchens, Irina Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Mary Jenkins. The Henry Moore Foundation archive Reproduced by permission of The Henry Moore Foundation Detail from Ben Nicholson by Humphrey Spender, circa 1935 [NPG P42] © National Portrait Gallery, London Detail from Barbara Hepworth by Tony Evans/Timelapse Library Ltd./ Hulton Archive/Getty Images [109229092] Detail from Henry Moore by Lola Walker (Lola Marsden), 3 October 1950 [NPG x125628] © Lola Marsden / National Portrait Gallery, London All sculpture measurements exclude bases except those which are integral. Published by Richard Green. © 2012 All rights reserved. Catalogue by Rachel Boyd. Photography by Sophie Drury and Beth Saunders. Graphic Design by Chris Rees. Printed in England by Hampton Printing (Bristol) Ltd. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated (without the publisher’s prior consent), in any form of binding or other cover than in which it is published, and without similar condition being imposed on another purchaser. All material contained in this catalogue is subject to the new laws of copyright, December 1989.