1978
Bronze
h13.5 x w21.3cm
Edition 2/9. The present work is registered with the Henry Moore Foundation as LH 755.

signed Moore and numbered 2/9 (on the base)

Provenance
Marlborough Fine Art, London, c.1978/79 where acquired by the present owner

The reclining figure is an integral part of Henry Moore’s oeuvre, and his experimentations with the form – from small to monumental works – has become part of the public imagination. Dating to the end of his career, the present example is the culmination of a lifetime of engagement with the reclining figure, and in particular its place within the landscape. One of Moore’s essential breakthroughs was to ‘cut’ the figure in two. This division was something he began experimenting with as early as 1934. By 1959, he was creating monumental figures composed of two or three parts and the negative spaces between them. Breaking down the boundaries of the human form served, he discovered, as a means of uniting body and landscape in an indivisible whole:

‘I realised what an advantage a separated two-piece composition could have in relating figures to landscape. […] Knees and breasts are mountains. Once these parts become separated you don’t expect it to be a naturalistic figure; therefore, you can justifiably make it like a landscape or a rock. If it is a single figure you can guess what it’s going to be like. If it is in two pieces, there’s a bigger surprise, you have more unexpected views; therefore the special advantage over painting—of having the possibility of many different views—is more fully exploited.’ (Carlton Lake, ‘Henry Moore’s World’, Atlantic Monthly, Boston, January 1962, p.44.)

‘Two Piece Reclining Figure: Cut’ exists in four scales of which the present is the original maquette at 21cm in length. It was worked into three larger scales, the next at 30cm (LH 756). This entire edition was purchased by the Hyatt Foundation in Illinois, as awards for winners of the Pritzker Architecture Prize – an honour for architects whose work consistently and significantly contributes to humanity and the built environment (recipients include Dame Zaha Hadid and Sir Norman Foster).

A working model at 100cm long (LH 757) was made soon after the prize edition, and finally, a 5 metre monumental edition which Moore completed at the age of eighty-three (LH 758). Two casts of this work are in Japan: one at the Hakone Open-Air Museum and the other another at the ITOCHU Headquarters in Tokyo. Another cast is located outside the Palais de la Musique et des Congrès in Strasbourg, France.

Price inclusive of ARR.