Figure

Contemporary Art

1937

Henry Spencer Moore
English, 1898-1986

Henry Moore’s seven-decade artistic career began with his early interest in non-Western art. Initially inspired by the African, Oceanic, and especially Pre-Columbian art that he saw at the British Museum in London, Moore, like Constantin Brâncusi, became a passionate proponent of direct carving, a technique that allowed the inherent qualities of materials to dictate a sculpture’s final form. In the 1930s, Moore merged his interest in non-Western art with aspects of abstraction and Surrealism, which he encountered during his regular trips to Paris. Works like Figure reveal Moore’s engagement with the organic, biomorphic forms used by contemporary Surrealist artists such as Jean Arp, Alberto Giacometti, and Joan Miró.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Contemporary Art

Artist: Henry Moore
Title: Figure
Place: England (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1937
Medium: Bird's eye marble
Dimensions: 53.4 × 35.6 × 22.9 cm (21 × 14 × 9 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Edgar Kaufmann, Jr.
Reference Number: 1950.1521
Copyright: © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS, London

J. Stevens, “Yorkshire Artists’ Exhibition”, Yorkshire Post, January 26, 1939.
“Modern Art in Yorkshire: Leeds Exhibition Features”, Leeds Mercury, January 27, 1939.
“Yorkshire Art in Leeds”, Yorkshire Post, January 27, 1939.
“Yorkshire Art—Various”, Yorkshire Evening Post, January 27, 1939, ill. n.p.
“Problems in Pictures”, Yorkshire Observer, January 28, 1939.
Read, Herbert Edward, Henry Moore, Sculpture and Drawings (1944; repr., Percy Lund, Humphries & Company, 1946 and 1949), fig 52a.
David Sylvester, ed., Henry Moore, Sculpture and Drawings 1921-1948, 4th ed. (Percy Lund, Humphries & Company, 1957), vol. 1, cat. 181, ill. 102.
Melville, Robert, Henry Moore Sculpture and Drawings 1921-1969, (Harry N. Abrams, 1970) cat. 163
Henry J. Seldis, Henry Moore in America, (Praeger, 1973), p. 272.

Leeds City Art Gallery, Yorkshire Artists’ Exhibition, January 28, 1939.
New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Henry Moore, 1946, cat. 37, ill. 43, traveled to the Art Institute of Chicago and the San Francisco Museum of Art.
Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, Fantasy Exhibition, April 30—June 30, 1954.
The Arts Club of Chicago, Henry Moore, December 11, 1959–January 14, 1960, cat. 4 (ill.). as “Abstraction”

Buchholz Gallery, New York, by 1946; sold to Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., New York, by 1949; given to the Art Institute, 1950.

Sylvester 181 4th ed

Read 52a

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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