Exhibitors
Lucy Johnson
| Artist: | HENRY MOORE (1898-1986) |
| Title: | HENRY MOORE, O.M., C.H. (British 1898-1986) : Standing Nude (1931) |
| Dimensions: | 55.80cm high 36.10cm wide |
| Description/Expertise: | HENRY MOORE, O.M., C.H. (British 1898-1986)
Standing Nude Signed ‘Moore’ (lower right) Signed ‘Henry Moore’ on the reverse Pen & ink charcoal and ink wash on paper Executed circa 1931 Sheet Height 55.8 cm 22 in. Length 36.1cm., 14 1/4 in. In a silvered casseta frame Frame height 84 cm. 33 in. length 60 cm., 23 ½ in. The figure is monumental and sculptural; her strength and vitality embodied in a build- up of energy in her body mass. Her presence is conveyed through strength of form and articulation of her body. Whilst her face is treated with reserve, her expression reflects an inner radiance and beauty. Drawing and sculpture were separate practices for Moore. The drawings helped establish Moore’s reputation and were widely seen as complementary presences in their own right. In the 1930’s drawing became a central practice not just as a preliminary to sculpture, and the word ‘drawing’ gradually became less than adequate to describe these works which became recognized by the critics as pictorial art by the end of the 1930’s. As a draughtsman, pictorial artist, or perhaps even painter as he should properly be thought of at this point in his career, Moore was able to work fast with ideas flooding onto the paper, ideas relating to sculpture but which he elaborated and embellished with detail that was essentially pictorial. During the 1930’s pictorial art gave free range to his imagination more readily than sculpture. Pictorial art could reflect on the human condition by means of narratives developed through interaction of internal parts in a way that single-object sculpture could not. Life drawings extend to the early 30’s, but are rare later on, were generally made on larger sheets. ‘I find drawing a useful outlet for ideas which there is not enough time time to realize as sculpture…Every few months, I stop carving for two or three weeks and do life drawing. At one time I used to mix the two, perhaps carving during the day and drawing from a model during the evening. But I found this unsatisfactory – the two activities interfered with each other, for the mental approach to each is different..Stone.. is so different from flesh and blood that one cannot carve directly from life without almost the certainty of ill-treating the material. Drawing and carving are so different that a shape or size or conception which ought to be satisfting in a drawing will be totally wrong realized as stone..In my sculpture I do not draw directly on my memory or observations of a particular object, but rather use whatever comes up from my general fund of knowledge of natural forms’. HM The drawings demonstrate that Moore was a pictorial artist as well as a sculptor. ‘I wonder … very impertinently whether Mr Moore may not be a painter who has taken the wrong turning’. (Raymond Mortimer, critic) Moore’s imagination needed the expressive possibilities of both painting and sculpture. ‘The construction of the human figure, the tremendous variety of balance, of size, of rhythm, all those things make the human being much more difficult to get right, in a drawing, than anything else…its not just a matter of training – you can’t understand it without being emotionally involved…it really is a deep, strong fundamental struggle to understand oneself as much as to understand what one’s drawing’. (HM) Moore wanted to express what made a drawn figure real by expressing vitality through organization of form. He liked working quickly so that the vitality of the model was seen as liveliness and he could reflect volume in the drawing. His sketchbook notes show a constant emphasis on the idea that the human body gains strength in drawing from being conceived in terms of mass. He prioritises certain kinds of formal arrangement that stress organization of mass, over representational accuracy. In that way vitality becomes an attribute of form, not something brought in from the outside to give the superficial effect of liveliness. Moore avoided gestures with the hands, preferring what he called ‘pent up energy’ expressed through relation of masses, to the spent energy of limb movements which are rare after his very early work. He also avoided particular facial expression, and any sense of the model using gesture or expression to address the viewer. |
| Provenance: | Bucholz Gallery (Curt Valentin), New York (Widely respected as one of the most astute dealers in modern art, Valentin organized influential exhibitions and attracted major artists to his Gallery)
Felix Landau, Los Angeles Sothebys London 1972 Redfern Gallery, London Private Collection, Florida |
| Literature: | Henry Moore Complete Drawings 1930-9, London 1998, volume II, No AG 31.13, illustrated p.48 |
OTHER WORKS
 Sir William Nicholson (1872-1949) : The Ruined Castle, a view of Dunure from the... |
 Roger Hilton (1911-1975) : Landscape Study |
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