Henry Moore: Sculptural Process and Public Identity

Purchased from the artist through the Buchholz Gallery, New York (Grant-in-Aid) 1950.

This almost life-size bronze sculpture depicts a man and a woman sitting on a bench holding a child between them. The original model for this sculpture was made in plaster and would have been used to make a mould from which the final bronze version could be cast. At least two full-size plaster models were made, which were themselves based on a smaller clay maquette (fig.1). The full-size plaster would have been built up over an armature and modelled when wet. The surface details were then carved when the plaster had hardened.

It is likely that the plaster model sent to the foundry was cut up into parts so that separate moulds could be created. The individual parts could then be pieced together after casting. Family Group was Moore’s first large sculpture to be cast in bronze, and was ultimately cast in an edition of four plus two artist’s copies. Tate’s Family Group was cast at the Rudier foundry in Paris between 1950 and 1951 and is likely to be number two or three in the edition. However, there is no edition number on the sculpture because by the time it was cast Moore had still not decided how many bronzes he would make. The sculpture is inscribed with the foundry name ‘Alexis.Rudier | Fondeur.Paris’ on the back of the base behind the woman (fig.2). (Although the founder Alexis Rudier died in 1897, the foundry continued to use his name until 1952.) The artist’s signature, ‘HENRY MOORE’, was inscribed into the side of the base next to the man’s left foot (fig.3).

The sculpture was cast in at least ten parts using the sand casting technique. The individual parts have been pieced together by roman joins, whereby a sleeved part is slotted into another part of the bronze and the two are secured by pins. The line and round pin of a roman join can be seen on the man’s left arm (fig.4). Other seam lines are discernible on the waists of both figures, on the legs of the man, and on the bench. The seam lines on the outside of the sculpture were finished by chasing a thin bronze flange with steel punches to render them practically invisible.

The outside surfaces of the sculpture are very smooth, suggesting they were sanded after casting. The features of the faces and hair were carved into the original model but they were also sharpened after casting using thin punches (fig.5). The bronze surface was coloured using chemical patination techniques. First, a brown base layer was applied, followed by a green colour. The patination was probably carried out by Moore or one of his studio assistants.

This bronze sculpture depicts an almost life-size man and woman seated on a low bench, holding a child between them. The woman sits to the right of the man and holds the child over her lap with both her arms. The man’s left arm support’s the child’s legs while his right hand rests on the woman’s left shoulder. The title, Family Group, indicates that the man and the woman are the parents of the small child.

The poses of the two adults seem to mirror each other, especially in the way that the woman’s right arm and the man’s left arm both curve outwards in a similar arc to hold the child between them (fig.1). The woman has small domed breasts and wears an ankle length skirt that drapes between her knees and stretches across the gap between her shins. Her legs are positioned straight in front of her, while the man’s thin, tubular legs are positioned at a slight angle, orientated towards the woman. Unlike the woman, the man does not appear to be wearing any clothing on his lower body.

When viewed from the side it becomes apparent that the sculpture is not very deep (fig.2). The figures’ knees are drawn up so that their bodies appear to be folding inwards, and their torsos are unnaturally thin. In contrast, the child is chubby and rounded. Positioned in the middle of the sculpture and held aloft by its parents, the child is the natural focal point. Discussing the arrangement of the figures, Moore identified how ‘the arms of the mother and the father [intertwine] with the child forming a knot between them, tying the three into a family unity’.1

In 1968 Moore stated that ‘the idea of the family group crystallized before the war’, when the German architect Walter Gropius proposed to Moore that he make a large-scale sculpture for a school in Impington, near Cambridge, which was designed by Gropius and Maxwell Fry in 1935–6.2 A handwritten note on a page of sketches dated 1934–5 (fig.3) indicates that at this time Moore was thinking about how to create a sculpture that would be meaningful to both adults and children. At the top of the page, above a series of sketches for a ‘mother and child’ sculpture, Moore wrote, ‘both for grown ups and child and anyhow in time the children will grow up, though children not having such fixed opinions are likely to accept and respond directly to a new conception than adults’.3

The college, which was opened in 1939, was designed to be a flexible space that catered for all the family, acting as the focal point for the entire community.4 Moore later recalled discussing the commission with Henry Morris, Chief Education Officer for Cambridgeshire County Council:

In 1951 Moore wrote that,

Moore filled nearly two sketchbooks with drawings presenting family groups in different poses. Some present a mother, father and two children of different ages, while others present the parents with only one child. Moore later described drawing as a way not only of generating ideas, but also of ‘sorting them out’.7 By recording his ideas on paper, Moore was able to review, select and edit the compositions that he felt were worth developing into small clay maquettes. The drawing titled Family Group 1945 (fig.4) can be identified as the preparatory sketch for the final full-size bronze sculpture, and demonstrates how Moore had fully conceived the arrangement of the figures prior to executing the composition in three-dimensions. In 1963, when Moore was asked by the critic David Sylvester which was the last important sculpture to have been developed from drawings, Moore replied, ‘I think the Family Group ones probably. The Family Group ideas were all generated by drawings’.8

The small clay maquette that Moore subsequently produced (fig.5) replicates all of the features of the drawing, including the father’s split head, which appears to represent an open mouth facing upwards. In addition to this maquette, Moore made at least thirteen other clay models of family groups.9 Ten of these models were cast in bronze editions, three of which are held in the Tate collection (see Tate N05604–N05606). Although these maquettes are described in the artist’s catalogue raisonné as terracottas, in 1963 Moore explained that ‘the original maquettes of the ... FAMILY GROUP sculptures were all modelled direct in clay and then baked, and so became terracottas. It was from these terracottas that the small bronzes were cast’.10

Ultimately, the Impington commission was unsuccessful, as Moore recalled in 1951:

However, an opportunity to complete the sculpture arose in 1947 when Moore was approached by John Newsom, the Director of Education in Hertfordshire, who enquired whether he would be interested in producing a new piece of sculpture for Barclay Secondary School, a new school in Stevenage. Moore readily agreed, ‘for here was the chance of carrying through one of the ideas on a large scale which I had wanted to do. I went to see the school and chose from my previous ideas the one which I thought would be right for Stevenage and also one which I had wanted most to carry out on a life-size scale’.12

Although it was not easy convincing the county education committee that the sculpture would be suitable, the commission was ultimately approved in 1949.13 The finished work was Moore’s first major bronze sculpture and his first large-scale sculpture to be editioned in multiple casts. According to Moore’s biographer Roger Berthoud, ‘Henry’s fee had struck the education committee as excessive. So he reduced it to what he reckoned was cast price, about £750, covering casting, transport, materials, enlargement etc., on the understanding that he could make extra casts and dispose of them himself: a concession from which he was overwhelmingly the gainer’.14

After choosing the maquette he wanted to enlarge for the Barclay School commission, Moore then made a plaster working model of the sculpture (fig.6).15 This model was slightly larger than the small maquette, and provided an opportunity for Moore to refine his design. The main difference between the original clay maquette and the final bronze version is the way the head of the father is depicted. As Moore explained,

The design was then enlarged in plaster to full-size by Moore and his studio assistant Bernard Meadows.17 According to the curator David Mitchinson, this model ‘was Moore’s earliest life-sized sculpture to be made in plaster’.18 To make this model, Moore and Meadows first had to construct an armature, probably from wood or wire netting, over which layers of plaster could be built up using trowels and spatulas. The plaster was constructed in three parts: the mother, the father, and the adults’ arms holding the child (fig.7). These were then assembled together so that attention could be paid to the surface texture of the sculpture and the individual features of the figures.

The full-size plaster was finished in 1949, and it was probably at this time that a second plaster version was made (fig.8). When asked why two plasters were created, Meadows replied ‘I should think for exhibition purposes’, although Moore may have wanted to keep a second copy in case the original plaster was damaged or destroyed during the casting process.19 The first bronze version of Family Group, destined for the Barclay School, was cast at the Fiorini Art Bronze Foundry in London. In 1951 Moore reflected that ‘the group was really too big for them to handle and they had lots of difficulties, in fact they took a whole year to do it, with a great deal of worry over it to me’.20

While the first cast was still being made, Moore chose to have two other copies of the sculpture cast in bronze. Given the problems experienced by Fiorini, Moore decided to have these two examples made by the Rudier Foundry in Paris.21 This foundry had a distinguished reputation, and had cast many bronze sculptures by the French artist Auguste Rodin (1840–1917). At Rudier the two sculptures were cast using the sand casting technique in at least ten sections, which were then reassembled and secured with pins.22

Before they were even finished these two casts were quickly acquired by Moore’s New York dealer, Curt Valentin of the Buchholz Gallery. Valentin bought them for £2,000 each, and soon sold one to the Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA) for £2,500. In a letter to Moore dated 17 February 1950, Valentin confirmed the MoMA sale and informed Moore that he was writing to Rudier to confirm that the sculpture would be ready for exhibition that autumn.23

It is probable that Moore discussed the possibility of Tate purchasing a cast of Family Group with the gallery’s director, John Rothenstein, in early 1950. In a letter to Rothenstein dated 4 April 1950, Moore wrote,

Minutes from the meeting of Tate’s Board of Trustees dated 20 April 1950 record that the board provisionally agreed to purchase Family Group for £2000, pending a decision on how many examples would be cast.25 On 25 May Moore wrote to Rothenstein confirming that ‘I have decided to keep to my original intention of only having three casts’, and that he was travelling to Paris the following week to see how Rudier was progressing with the casting. Significantly, in this letter Moore also discussed the price of the sculpture set for Tate. Since Valentin had bought the sculpture for £2000, and Tate had agreed to pay £2000, Moore was aware that his dealer would not make any profit. To secure the sale, Moore wrote,

On 1 June Rothenstein replied to Moore thanking him for arranging the price and sale of Family Group, stating that the trustees will ‘be very much gratified by the prospect of being able to purchase this work for Tate’.27 Just over two weeks later he confirmed that the trustees approved the purchase at their meeting on 15 June 1950. However, sometime between mid-June and early December Moore was approached by the American collector Nelson Rockefeller, who also wished to purchase an example of Family Group. Despite declaring earlier that he wanted to keep the edition to three, it seems that Moore was swayed by the prospect of selling a cast to this important collector, and he telephoned Rothenstein to discuss the matter. In a letter written on 4 December 1950 Rothenstein stated,

The second example of Family Group went on display at MoMA in February 1951, and by 23 February that year Tate’s example had been completed by Rudier, and was ready for shipping back to Moore’s studio.29 The sculpture was delivered to Moore in late March, and on 28 April 1951 Moore wrote to Rothenstein that ‘the cast is really excellent and I am very glad that we had it done in Paris’.30 However, Moore annotated the typed letter with a handwritten addendum, noting, ‘the patina is still being a problem, but I hope to have it more or less alright by this Monday – but if its not, it can still be changed’.31 Moore was working to a deadline as the sculpture was due to be included in his solo exhibition at Tate, which opened on 2 May 1951.32

Tate’s Family Group was included in the 1951 exhibition of Moore’s work, and has regularly been on display ever since. The sculpture was also exhibited in Moore’s major solo exhibition at the Tate Gallery in 1978, organised to mark his eightieth birthday. The exhibition included all Moore’s sculptures held in the Tate collection, including the thirty-six sculptures presented as the Henry Moore Gift. For this occasion Family Group was exhibited in the Duveen Galleries on a plinth opposite Recumbent Figure 1938 (Tate N05387). Held between June and August, the exhibition was attended by over 20,500 people and nearly 11,000 copies of the catalogue were sold.33

The first cast of Family Group was installed at the Barclay School in September 1950 (fig.9). The Daily Dispatch reported the installation with the headline ‘“Belsen” statue came in the night’, echoing the opinion of local postman, Robert Lapworth, who thought the figures looked like ‘something from Belsen camp’.34 In May 1951 an unnamed critic for the Times reviewing the current exhibition of Moore’s work at the Leicester Galleries drew special attention to the full-size plaster Family Group, which was included in the show: ‘The “Family Group” consists of two nude figures swinging a baby from one to the other and is certainly a most ingenious system of closed curves to which all the forms are rigidly subjected; it has very much the appearance of an intellectual exercise and one that might be more easily appreciated if carried out on a considerably smaller scale’.35

In 1975 Moore responded to a letter from Evelyn S. Ringold, an American researcher investigating the representation of family life. In his letter Moore outlined the circumstances in which Family Group came to be made, and reflected that by the time the full-size bronze sculpture was cast, his daughter Mary,

In 2006 the art historian Penelope Curtis suggested that the Family Group series – the drawings, maquettes and full-size bronzes – can be understood as ‘Moore’s own answer to the new ethos in British sculpture after the war, which returned to a much more recognisable human figure, and responded to the new opportunities for public sculpture arising out of state support for the arts within a culture of reconstruction’.37 Despite contemporary accusations that the figures resembled the skeletal survivors of Nazi concentration camps, Curtis asserted that ‘Moore was a generation older than the new wave of British sculptors ... whose style was angular and anxious, and it is likely that Moore’s comparative wholeness accorded better with people who wished to celebrate the arts of peace, rather than those of the cold war’.38

Family Group was initially cast in bronze in an edition of four. The first three casts remain in their original collections, at the Barclay School, Stevenage; Tate, London; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.39 The fourth bronze, formerly in the collection of Nelson Rockefeller, is now in the collection of the Hakone Open Air Museum in Japan.40 In addition to these four casts, Moore also cast an artist’s copy at the Rudier Foundry, which is now held in the Norton Simon Art Foundation in Pasadena.41 In 1995, in accordance with the artist’s wishes, the Henry Moore Foundation cast a second artist’s copy at the Morris Singer Foundry, Basingstoke, which remains in the Foundation’s collection.

Acknowledgements
This catalogue entry was compiled using research undertaken by Robert Sutton, Collaborative Doctoral Award student (University of York and Tate).