Henry Moore O.M., C.H.

(British, 1898-1986)

Death of Mira 36.8 x 28.2 cm. (14 1/2 x 11 1/8 in.) (sheet); 29.8 x 21.2 cm. (11 3/4 x 8 3/8 in.) (image)

Footnotes

Provenance
With Oskar Krasner Gallery, New York, 1979
Joan and Donald Collins Collection
Private collection, U.S.A.
Richard Mellon Scaife

Exhibited
London, The Leicester Galleries, Exhibition of Recent Sculpture and Early Life Drawings by Henry Moore, November 1955 (catalogue untraced)

Literature
Ann Garrould (ed.), Henry Moore: Complete Drawings Volume 3, 1940-1949, Lund Humphries, London, 2001, p.308, cat.no.AG 50.21, HMF 2592 (ill.b&w, as cat.no.AG 50.20)

Visually, the present work is archetypal of Henry Moore's drawing. Two near-faceless figures are placed in a watercolour-washed background, each limb broken down into constituent jigsaw pieces that slot together more coherently than nature could manage. Waves of darker, more intense background are broken up by a few lines of pastel, cautiously suggesting a setting for the scene. The foreground, pronounced in charcoal by firmly planted feet on a foundation of green pastel and delicate streaks of unpainted paper, gives way to an undulating midground and a more mountainous background. The figures themselves take up remarkably expressive poses, Moore displaying in full his incorruptible eye for motion and the subtleties of human movement; the crossing of Mira's legs, her limp arms and head, the desperate and strained attempt to hold her up in vain as gravity employs Moore's charcoal to drag each body downward.

Kenneth Clark described Henry Moore's drawing of this period as having "the quality of Greek drama", describing his figures as "dramatis personae" (Kenneth Clark, Henry Moore Drawings, Thames and Hudson, London, 1974, p.120). Literally translated as "characters", the Latin phrase is especially relevant to Death of Mira, coming as it does within a series illustrating André Gide's Prométhée, a translation of Goethe's Prometheus (1789). In this context, the piece feels rather theatrical, somewhat removed from the morbidity of the title, with a dramatic panache appropriate for its origins. The figure of Prometheus emerged in the Greek cultural sphere to which Clarke refers, finding his most famous form in Aeschylus' drama of the fifth century BCE. Fittingly, Clark even refers to the "Aeschylean sense" (ibid., p.120) of his wartime and immediate post-war work, as if to highlight the current piece.

Moore's relationship with Classicism was inconsistent; initially, he had been rather anti-Classical, believing the paths of Graeco-Roman influence had been too well trodden to have much more to offer. Instead, he looked back further to Sumerian sculpture, as well as Egyptian and Pre-Columbian works. However, the war offered a route back in to the Classical, with Athenian tragedy and Hellenistic stoicism offering both artistic inspiration and a set of values and philosophies Moore felt useful in such trying times. Prométhée was the artist's second illustration of a work inspired by an Antique original, coming after Edward Sackville-West's The Rescue (1945), based on Homer's Odyssey.

This wartime reversion to more of a Classical influence emerged with the artist's 'Shelter Drawings', depicting people taking shelter in the stations of the London Underground. With little to no opportunities for sculpture, Moore's focus turned to drawing, and the drapery of blankets used in the shelters allowed Moore to explore a distinctly Greek aesthetic that would heavily influence his work of the late 1940s. Where Lot 33 of this sale showcases Moore's interest in the pre-historical, Death of Mira, and the context it came within, very much focuses on human history. An ardent humanist himself, this engagement with the phenomenon of our social and cultural world – past, present, and future – was fundamental to Henry Moore's creative paradigm.