Henry Moore: Sculptural Process and Public Identity

Acquired directly from the artist by the Friends of the Tate Gallery, by whom presented to Tate in 1960.

This bronze sculpture depicts a reclining female figure resting on a rectangular base. The figure, whose body is comprised of tubular and hollowed, block-like forms, appears to rest on her left side while her large bent legs extend to her right. The work was cast in bronze from an original plaster model, which was also used as the basis for a larger version of the sculpture that Moore carved in travertine marble for the Unesco headquarters in Paris.

Moore would have made the original model for this sculpture by applying successive layers of wet plaster to a supportive armature, probably from lengths of wood and scrim. He then used a range of tools to create specific textures in the surface of the plaster, which were reproduced in the bronze. For example, chisel marks can be seen on the figure’s right leg, following the curve of its arch (fig.1), while the head features more expressionistic marks created using a spatula (fig.2). The two deep hollows representing eyes may have been made by Moore by pressing his thumb into the plaster while it was still slightly wet. Moore also appears to have chipped away at particular areas of the dry plaster, utilising the techniques of direct carving to give these surfaces a ragged appearance.

When the plaster had fully hardened it was sent to the Noack Foundry in West Berlin to be cast in bronze. Plasters of this size would usually be cut into sections at the foundry and individual moulds would be taken of each part to make the casting process more manageable. Close examination of the surface reveals the presence of casting investment in crevices close to where it is attached to the base (fig.3), which suggests that this sculpture was cast using the lost wax method. After they had been cast the individual bronze sections would then have been welded together to create the finished sculpture. Weld joins were carefully filed down and textured with a series of special punches to blend with the surrounding area. This process is called ‘chasing’ and is the method by which repairs and joins on a bronze are disguised after casting.

Apart from having been chased and cleaned no other post-cast finishing was undertaken on the sculpture. It was artificially patinated by applying various chemical solutions to the bronze, either with or without heat, which reacted with the surface to form various coloured compounds. This sculpture has an even, slightly transparent brown patina with red-brown accents, particularly in the recesses. A light green colour can also be seen in some areas (fig.4). These colours would have been achieved using different chemical solutions, such as potassium polysulphide and ferric nitrate, in varying concentrations. After it had been patinated the sculpture would have been given a coating of wax to protect it.

The base is made of wood and covered with copper sheets that have been patinated a dark brown colour with some pale green stippling. A seam runs down the centre of the base from end to end revealing where two sheets meet. The top surface of the base is textured with rows of small marks, probably made by lightly hammering a fork or claw chisel into the copper sheet (fig.5). Some edges and central areas of the base have become severely dented, perhaps caused by movements of the sculpture before it was permanently fixed in place. It has not been possible to examine the fixings underneath the base but the sculpture is likely to be attached with bolts at the figure’s left elbow and at various points where the legs and feet meet the base.

The sculpture is signed ‘Moore’ and marked ‘II/V’ at the bottom of the figure’s leg (fig.6), and the foundry mark ‘GUSS. H. Noack. Berlin’ can be seen on the feet at the back of the sculpture close to the base (fig.7). A plaque is fixed to the front side of the base to record the fact that it was presented by the Friends of the Tate Gallery in 1960.

Working Model for Unesco Reclining Figure 1957 is a bronze sculpture of a reclining figure made up of bridge-like forms, holes and arched spaces, which, despite their abstract appearance, have been composed in a way that allows certain features to be recognised as distinct body parts. Indeed, the figure can be seen to be propped up on its left elbow and appears to lie in a twisted position with its legs extending to the side while its bent knees point towards the front. The upright torso and head of the figure face the bulky right leg, which projects up at an angle to the same height as the shoulders, creating a compact horizontal composition (fig.1). The sculpture is mounted on a copper clad wooden base designed by the artist. According to notes held at Tate, the base, which is lightly textured with indentations, ‘has always been regarded as an integral part of the work’.1

The face of the sculpture has a dappled appearance and features two unevenly positioned eye sockets (fig.2). Two small irregularly shaped circular depressions on the front of the face may be regarded as nostrils, despite the absence of a nose. Underneath these is a very lightly incised line, suggestive of a mouth. The rear of the head has been marked with deep gouges and striations to evoke hair, contrasting with the much smoother neck. In comparison to the rest of the body the head and neck appear disproportionately small, and are notable for the way in which they lean slightly backwards, giving the impression that the figure is looking up and over the ridge formed by the right leg.

The roughly square-shaped torso balances on the bulbous left elbow and features two holes, one higher up marking the pit of the left arm and another penetrating the lower abdomen. A large round cavity has been carved into the figure’s back, accentuating its depth, while on the chest a bulky sternum projects forward. From the rear, the body can be seen to extend into a large, anatomically ambiguous, wedge-shaped protrusion that creates a shallow arch over the base (fig.3). The large right leg looms over this form and, from the front, resembles a three-sided arch with an angled upper face. The lower left leg rests horizontally on the front of the base and converges with the downward pointing calf of the right leg (fig.4). A prominent central gap separates the two legs, through which can be seen the large rear form.

Working Model for Unesco Reclining Figure is a bronze cast of the sculpture that served as the preparatory model for Moore’s monumental Unesco Reclining Figure 1957–8, carved in travertine marble (fig.5). Moore was approached to create a large-scale sculpture to sit outside the new headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) in Paris in May 1955, but it took two years for him to decide what kind of sculpture to make.2 In September 1956 Moore wrote ‘to make a sculpture which has (if only in my mind) a real connection with the purpose of UNESCO and also proper scale, relationship or contrast, and be a satisfactory piece of sculpture to me, is not an easy affair’.3 Many of Moore’s early ideas for the Unesco commission featured groups or seated figures, sometimes reading a book, in an attempt to convey something of the educational aspirations of the organisation. He also experimented with the idea of creating a wall between his sculpture and the heavily fenestrated façade of the building, which, according to the critic Herbert Read, Moore was concerned would ‘destroy its [the sculpture’s] outlines and mass’.4

In 1960 Moore recalled, ‘eventually, after discarding many preliminary studies I decided on a reclining figure that seeks to tell no story at all. I wanted to avoid any kind of allegorical interpretation that is now trite’.5 As early as 1958 the writer W.J. Strachan suggested that the pencil drawings now titled Throne Reclining Figures 1954–7 and Unesco Reclining Figures 1954–7 (fig.6) showed the development of Moore’s design for the reclining figure and formed the basis of a series of clay maquettes.6 The two sketches at the top of Unesco Reclining Figures bear some resemblance to the finished sculpture, despite the fact that in February 1959, in response to a letter from the art collector Alan Wurtzburger, who enquired whether or not there were any preparatory drawings for the Unesco commission available to purchase, Moore wrote, ‘I have looked through my notebooks, but cannot find a drawing which would seem to other people to have any definite connection with the final figure’.7 He continued, ‘The figure came, not so much through any particular drawing, but developed from small models I made in clay’.8 Another sketch titled Drawing for Unesco Reclining Figure 1954–7 (fig.7) also has a remarkable likeness to the final sculpture, but it was not dated by Moore and may have been drawn after the composition of the three-dimensional maquette or working model had already been finalised.

In February 1957 Moore took four maquettes to Paris to be judged by Marcel Breuer, the architect of the new Unesco headquarters, and members of the organisation’s art advisory committee. Every person independently selected the same work, which, as it happens, was also Moore’s favourite (fig.8).9 The panel also accepted Moore’s suggestion to change the material in which the sculpture would be made from bronze to travertine marble. The art historian Margaret Garlake has revealed that ‘after receiving the formal commission in May 1957, Moore completed the half-size working model by early August, more than two years after the initiation of the project’.10 The plaster working model was an enlarged version of the maquette, but smaller than the proposed final sculpture (fig.9). Constructing a working model allowed Moore to refine the composition of his design and consider the arrangement of forms on a larger scale prior to embarking on the full-size work.

In order to make the plaster working model Moore and his assistants would first have had to construct an armature for the sculpture to the required size and shape. The armature was probably made from lengths of wood and wire, and then draped or wrapped in layers of scrim, a bandage-like fabric. Layers of plaster were then applied to the armature while its interior remained hollow (fig.10). Moore’s assistants would have completed most of the preliminary work on the working model, including applying successive layers of plaster to the armature and scrim until only a short section of each armature rod was exposed. Moore explained, ‘once they [the assistants] have brought the work within an inch or so of the measurements I intend it to be, I take it over, and then it becomes a thing I’m working on as it would if I had brought it to that stage myself’.11 During this final stage Moore began to work into the surface of the sculpture (fig.11). Using an array of tools different marks and textures could be achieved depending on the wetness of the plaster as it dried. Moore found plaster to be a very useful material because it could be ‘both built up, as in modelling, or cut down, in the way you carve stone or wood’.12 According to Strachan, the head of Working Model for Unesco Reclining Figure ‘with its slight upward tilt, symbolically as well as plastically so effective, is the climax of the conception ... Moore took immense pains over the placing of the eye socket. Formalized as usual but by no means arbitrarily, their depth and expression set the mood of the whole’.13 In 1965 Read also noted that ‘the head has an air of alert expectancy, of intelligent curiosity’.14

In September 1957 a plaster working model for the Unesco sculpture arrived at the Société S. Henraux quarry at Querceta in Italy, where the full-size marble sculpture was carved.15 Using the working model as a template, the artisans at Henraux measured and scaled up the sculpture and roughed out its shape from four large blocks of stone. Moore made regular trips to Italy to oversee the carving, which was completed in the summer of 1958. Unesco Reclining Figure, weighing a total of thirty-eight tons and over sixteen feet long and eight feet high, was installed in Paris in October 1958 ready for the inauguration of the Unesco building in November.

It seems that Moore was initially uncertain about casting the working model in bronze. On 2 January 1959, in a letter to Andrew Ritchie, Director of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, Moore reported:

Charles Gimpel was the director of the London-based commercial gallery Gimpel Fils, and it is likely that he sold the reserved cast of Working Model for Unesco Reclining Figure to the American collector Arnold Maremont. Although Gimpel did not formally represent Moore, the two men were close friends and Moore would often reserve sculptures for Gimpel’s clients. Seven bronze casts of Working Model for Unesco Reclining Figure were ultimately made over a four-year period, but they were not all cast at the same foundry: three casts were produced by Corinthian Art Bronze Foundry in London, two by Susse Fondeurs in Paris, and two at the Noack Foundry in West Berlin.

Tate’s version was one of the last to be made, and was cast at Noack. Technicians at the foundry would have cut the plaster sculpture into smaller pieces and then created moulds of each section from which the bronze parts could be cast. A white deposit in craggy areas on the sculpture’s surface is probably casting investment, which suggests that the sculpture was created using the lost wax casting method.17 Once all the pieces of the sculpture had been cast they were welded together and the casting seams ‘chased’ to render the joins as imperceptible as possible. The finished sculpture was then returned to Moore so that he could check the quality of the casting, add his signature, and make decisions about the patina. A patina is the surface colour of a sculpture and is usually achieved by applying chemical solutions to the bronze surface. Tate’s version of Working Model for Unesco Reclining Figure has a fairly consistent brown patina with golden areas highlighting the face, shoulders, breastbone and knees (fig.12). Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin and exposure to natural weather and pollution can change its colour. There are some green areas on the sculpture, mainly in the recessed area of the figure’s back. It is likely that this green colour was applied by Moore as there are no records of the sculpture being exhibited outside.

In 1958 Strachan noted that the design of the Unesco figure related closely to specific examples of Moore’s earlier work. The bent and slightly parted legs of Reclining Figure 1929 (fig.13), which extend to the side of an upright head and shoulders, seem to prefigure the pose and angles of the Unesco sculpture. Another Reclining Figure, carved in elm in 1935–6 (fig.14), relates more directly to the composition of Working Model for Unesco Reclining Figure, and features a hole through the figure’s torso, which serves to open out the sculpture. In 1937 Moore articulated his appreciation of holes in an article published in the Listener magazine:

The close formal relationships between Moore’s work of the 1930s and the much later Working Model for Unesco Reclining Figure are indicative of Moore’s abiding interest in natural forms and processes. Discussing Moore’s Unesco sculpture, the art historian Christa Lichtenstern argued in 2008 that ‘with the natural rhythms of its vibrant forms, this reclining figure epitomises Moore’s view of civilisation as an “organic process”’.19

In his 1959 analysis of Moore’s work the psychologist Erich Neumann argued that the artist’s post-war female figures should be viewed as examples of the archetypal ‘Great Mother’.20 Identifying the centrality of this archetype to ancient civilisations, Neumann described the Great Mother as a symbol of ‘nourishment, shelter and security’, and ‘the mistress of life and fertility’.21 He argued that:

Although Neumann did not specifically mention the Unesco sculptures in his book, Herbert Read drew heavily on this interpretation in his own discussion of the full-size Unesco Reclining Figure published in 1965, quoting Neumann’s assertion that ‘the birth of the feminine archetype in modern man signifies at the same time the development of human relatedness, of his social capacity and the growing consciousness of the unity of mankind on earth’.23 Read went on to state that ‘if this is a true interpretation of Moore’s work, and I believe it is, then what could be more appropriate as a symbol of the aims of UNESCO than this figure, the feminine earth archetype, the mother of life itself?’.24

In 2001 the art historian Christopher Pearson considered Moore’s Unesco Reclining Figure in light of the ideology of post-war internationalism that led to the formation of the United Nations and Unesco. Pearson acknowledged that ‘it is increasingly difficult to sense the fierce optimism that shaped’ the buildings and the artworks commissioned by these organisations, which, over time, became ‘austere symbols of a new age of technological progress and international co-operation’.25 For Pearson, by taking a ‘non-narrative’ approach to his commission, Moore successfully embodied the ‘vague idealism’ of Unesco by creating a sculpture that had an ‘iconographic opacity – a vision too subjective to be fully transmissable’.26 Indeed, as Pearson noted, after the sculpture’s unveiling critics were wary of articulating its symbolic meaning or allegorical message; writing in the Architectural Record J.E. Burchard simply stated that Moore’s sculpture had ‘a symbolism that has something to do with what UNESCO stands for’.27 Overall, however, the critical and public reaction to Moore’s Unesco sculpture was hostile, finding it either too modern or not contemporary enough.28 Pearson concluded that Moore’s sculpture, Breuer’s building, and indeed Unesco itself should be regarded as ‘nostalgic reminders of a better world that never arrived’.29

Tate held thirteen sculptures by Henry Moore in its collection prior to the acquisition of Working Model for Unesco Reclining Figure in 1960. Since a large number of these were small maquettes, by the late 1950s the Trustees of the Tate were keen to expand the gallery’s holdings of Moore’s work. Acquisitions of Moore’s work had been hindered since the 1930s, first by J.B. Manson, Tate’s director between 1930 and 1938, who disliked modern art and who told Tate trustee Robert Sainsbury ‘Over my dead body will Henry Moore ever enter the Tate’,30 and then by Moore’s subsequent post as a trustee of the gallery from 1941–8 and then 1949–56.31

After stepping down from his role as a trustee, Moore discussed a number of sculptures that could be made available to Tate with the gallery’s director, Sir John Rothenstein. Moore proposed a list of eight works, which was presented to the trustees at their meeting on 16 May 1957.32 This coincided with Moore beginning work on Working Model for Unesco Reclining Figure, which, according to Moore, Rothenstein expressed an interest in acquiring for Tate.33 Two years later, and after the successful showing of one of the bronze casts in London, Tate confirmed their interest and enquired whether it would be possible to have another cast made, since all the other casts in the edition had already been sold. On 16 June 1959 Moore wrote to his patron Alan Wurtzbrger, who had arranged the Baltimore Museum of Art’s acquisition of Working Model for Unesco Reclining Figure in 1959, explaining:

All the other owners of the sculpture duly agreed to this arrangement and in 1960 Working Model for Unesco Reclining Figure was one of six works acquired by the Friends of the Tate Gallery. On 6 October 1960 Moore wrote to Rothenstein informing him that ‘the Unesco bronze arrived from Paris a few days ago, and I’m now working on the patina – I think it will be ready in a about a week’s time’.34 Although it is known that Tate’s version was the extra seventh cast of Working Model for Unesco Reclining Figure, it is stamped with the edition number ‘II/V’ (fig.15). Its identification as the second of five sculptures, rather than the seventh of seven, can be explained with reference to an exchange between Moore and Norman Reid, Keeper of the Tate Collection, in early 1961. On 20 February Reid wrote to Moore informing him that the Friends wished to hold a party on 2 May to celebrate the presentation of the six recently acquired sculptures. Reid stated, ‘for this occasion I should like to have them all set up together in the first part of the Sculpture Hall or in a gallery on their own. If you can manage to get them to the Tate say, a week in advance of May 2nd it would give us time to set them up properly’.35 On receipt of this letter Moore replied, ‘I am glad that the sculpture will not be on show until the beginning of May, because it will allow me to switch the last cast of the UNESCO figure, which came from Susse, for a cast of it made by Noack, in Germany, which is a much better quality cast’.36 Not only does this exchange explain the discrepancy in the edition number, it also indicates that although it was purchased in 1960, Tate’s Working Model for Unesco Reclining Figure did not actually arrive at the gallery until May 1961.

A letter to Moore dated 1 June 1961 from Jane Lascelles, Organising Secretary for the Friends, notes that there was no correspondence about the acquisition of these sculptures in the Friends’ files, suggesting that the particulars of the sale, including prices, were agreed verbally with Moore.37 In addition to Working Model for Unesco Reclining Figure, the other sculptures presented to the gallery in December 1960 were Composition 1932 (Tate T00385), Stringed Figure 1938, cast 1960 (Tate T00386), Reclining Figure 1939, cast 1959 (Tate T00387), Helmet Head No.1 1950, cast 1960 (Tate T00388) and Mother and Child 1953, cast c.1954 (T00389).

Between 1970 and 1978 Working Model for Unesco Reclining Figure was on long-term loan to the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull, except for a brief period in 1972 when it was included in Moore’s celebrated exhibition at Forte di Belvedere in Florence. In 1978 the sculpture was included in a solo exhibition of Moore’s work at the Tate Gallery, held to celebrate the artist’s eightieth birthday. It was exhibited alongside Three Part Object 1960 (Tate T02285) in gallery nineteen (fig.16). Held between June and August, the exhibition was attended by over 20,500 people and nearly 11,000 copies of the catalogue were sold.38

Working Model for Unesco Reclining Figure is numbered 415 in Moore’s catalogue raisonné and exists in an edition of seven, although only five plus an artist’s cast had initially been intended.39 Other examples are held in the collections of the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Chicago Art Institute, Chicago; Kunsthaus, Zürich; and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Although a cast is listed as belonging to the Baltimore Museum of Art in the artist’s catalogue raisonné, the location of this cast cannot be verified.