Henry Moore O.M., C.H.

(British, 1898-1986)

Family Group 37.8 x 43.5 cm. (14 7/8 x 17 1/8 in.)

Footnotes

Provenance
The Artist, until 1953
With The Leicester Galleries, London, 1954, where acquired by
Peter Mayer, thence by descent
Sale; Woolley & Wallis, Salisbury, 7 December 2021, lot 313
Sale; Christie's, London, 19 October 2023, lot 259, where acquired by the present owners

Exhibited
Antwerp, British Council, C.A.W. Gallery, 1953, cat.no.38 (loaned by the artist, catalogue untraced)

Literature
Anne Garrould (ed.), Henry Moore: Volume 4, Complete Drawings 1950-76, The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries, Much Hadham and Aldershot, 2003, pp.48-49, cat.no.AG 51.14, HMF.2710 (ill.b&w)

Moore's earliest family group drawings and sculptures date from 1944-45, and were made in response to the second attempt by Henry Morris, Director of Education for Cambridgeshire, to raise money for a family group sculpture for Walter Gropius's school at Impington, near Cambridge. Moore had discussed the sculpture with the architect before the war. Again Morris was unable to raise the necessary funds. Surprisingly, Moore's family group maquettes, which have become among his most sought after sculptures, were not liked by the local education authorities. Eventually, the large bronze Family Group, 1948-49 (LH269) was acquired for Barclay School, Stevenage, Hertfordshire.

Moore's family group drawings and maquettes of 1944-45 were, like his many earlier depictions of the mother and child motif, imaginary creations. In 1946, with the birth of Mary, the Moores' daughter, Henry gained first hand experience of the mother and child relationship, and he himself formed the third unit of the Moore family group.

Family Group, 1951 is a continuation of the domestic interiors of the mid-1940s, such as Girl Reading to a Woman and Child, 1946 (AG46.S3). The bodies of the parents and children are largely defined by the linear, two-way sectional lines, which run down and across the forms, serving the same function as the string-like lines on the bronze casts of Reclining Figure: Festival, 1951.

Moore's family group drawings of 1948-51, and the bronze rocking chair sculptures of 1952, made as toys for Mary, are among the most autobiographical of all his work, reflecting the long awaited joys of fatherhood and family life.

Alan Wilkinson, 2008