Henry Moore: Sculptural Process and Public Identity

Presented by the artist to Tate in 1978 as part of the Henry Moore Gift.

This two-part bronze sculpture is currently displayed in an ornamental pool in front of Charing Cross Hospital in London. Both parts of the sculpture sit above the waterline and are fixed to individual concrete bases submerged beneath the water (fig.1)

The bronze sculpture originated from a plaster model that Moore would have made by building up wet plaster over a supportive armature, perhaps made of wood and metal. Looking at the surface texture it is clear that Moore fully exploited the material properties of plaster to produce many different surface effects. Wet plaster would have been freely applied using a spatula but deep grooves indicate that the plaster was shaped when it began to set (fig.2). The many striations evince the use of pointed tools (fig.3), while other marks suggest that Moore also used a surform tool or grater when the plaster was the texture of ‘cheese hard’. After completion, a mould was taken of the two plaster parts which was used to cast the sculpture in bronze at the foundry.

The size of a cast piece of bronze is dependent on the size of the crucible at the foundry, because bronze must be cast in a single pour. Large bronzes, such as the two sections of this sculpture, are usually cast in several parts before being welded together to form the whole. The welds would have been carefully filed down and textured with punch tools to match the surrounding surface, a process called ‘chasing’. An example of this can be seen on the back of the figure’s lower torso (fig.4). These welds have a different composition from the rest of the sculpture and sometimes become more visible when the sculpture is displayed outside due to differential corrosion on the surface.

The final stage of fabrication involved applying an artificial patina to the bronze surface, created by applying chemical solutions to the bronze that reacted with the surface to produce coloured compounds. This sculpture has been displayed outdoors for many years and so its original uniform brown patina has altered slowly due to exposure to the elements. As a result parts of the surface have turned green, particularly on the high points (fig.5).

When the sculpture left the foundry it would have been given a coating of wax to protect it. This wax coating is replenished on an annual basis as part of Tate’s ongoing conservation programme for all its outdoor sculptures. It is also examined to check for any signs of degradation, and washed to remove bird lime and dirt. A resin is also applied to help protect the bronze at the waterline.

The artist’s signature and foundry mark are both visible on the back of the torso (fig.6)

Henry Moore’s two-part sculpture Working Model for Reclining Figure (Lincoln Center) 1963–5 comprises two separate bronze elements that together may be understood to represent a reclining human figure. The sculpture was the working model for a much larger work commissioned for the Lincoln Center in New York City. The larger sculpture was designed to be placed in a large ornamental pool of water in front of the building, where it was installed in 1965. Tate’s working model for this sculpture is currently on long-term loan to the Charing Cross Hospital in London, where it is also installed outdoors in a pool (fig.1).

The pose of a reclining figure – created by an upright torso and horizontally-arranged legs – was a motif that preoccupied Moore for much of his career. Works such as Recumbent Figure 1938 (Tate N05387) and Draped Reclining Woman 1957–8 (Tate T06825) are earlier examples of Moore’s engagement with the subject, which from 1959 went in a new direction when Moore began to systematically segment his reclining figures into two and three pieces, as can be seen in Two Piece Reclining Figure No.2 1960 (Tate T00395) (fig.2). In 1961 Moore explained:

Working Model for Reclining Figure (Lincoln Center) represents a continuation and development of these earlier ideas and forms. The sculpture comprises an upright torso part and a separate block-like part, which, judging by the title and Moore’s earlier manifestations of this subject, would seem to denote the legs. The torso section is wide and thin and marked by irregular curvaceous protrusions. A thin slither of bronze marks the tallest point of the sculpture and may be recognised as a head due to its position within the composition, although it possesses no recognisable facial features. The rear of the head is reminiscent of a fin that extends down the figure’s back to create a ridged backbone, which divides the back into two similarly sized sections (fig.3). Two broad shoulders round off the top of the torso, which does not have arms. On the left shoulder is a triangular shaped depression, the edge of which is akin to a collar bone. The torso remains approximately the same width from shoulders to hips, at which point it splits into two truncated appendages separated by an arch. Seen from the side, the torso appears to lean forwards at a diagonal angle towards the other section of the sculpture (fig.4).

The second, smaller section of the sculpture comprises two differently shaped and highly textured vertical columns connected by a smooth, curved sheet of bronze that creates an almost tubular hollow between them (fig.5). This linking curve arches over the gap but also extends backwards to create a fin-like protrusion (fig.6). The heavily textured surfaces, overhanging edges and rounded hollows of this part of the sculpture are reminiscent of seafront caves and eroded cliffs, allusions that are accentuated by its placement in water.

During the early 1960s Moore developed close working relationships with a number of American architects, many of whom approached the artist to create monumental public sculptures to adorn city plazas and corporate courtyards. Indeed, according to the art historian Iain Boal, by the mid-1960s Moore was regarded as ‘the open-air sculptor par excellence’.2 In December 1961 Moore was approached to create a sculpture to be placed in a water pool the size of a tennis court located in front of the Lincoln Center, a new arts and cultural complex in New York City. The fee for the commission was $240,000, which was to cover all costs, including casting and shipping. Moore was interested in the way a sculpture could be reflected in water, and accepted the commission (fig.7). However, Moore rarely made sculptures according to a rigid brief or set of requirements. Instead he would invite the person commissioning the work to choose from a selection of maquettes or mid-sized working models already in development. In this way Moore was able to retain artistic control over a commission and develop ideas for his work independently of others. By the time Moore came to start work on Working Model for Reclining Figure (Lincoln Center) he had already completed four two-piece reclining figures and had amassed numerous maquettes and drawings that explored the potential of dividing the human figure into multiple parts. These designs clearly informed the compositional arrangement of the Lincoln Center sculpture, but the resulting work was understood by Moore to represent a slightly different subject. In 1967 he reflected that ‘in the case of the Lincoln Center piece I saw a chance to carry out a private idea, that of a woman and rock rising from the water. There was no compromise’.3

By the 1960s Moore preferred to develop new ideas for sculptures by first making small three-dimensional maquettes in a malleable material such as clay or plaster. Moore most likely made the maquette for Working Model for Reclining Figure (Lincoln Center) in his small studio in the grounds of his home, Hoglands, at Perry Green in Hertfordshire. This studio was lined with shelves displaying Moore’s ever growing collection of found bones, shells and flint stones, the shapes of which often served as starting points for Moore’s formal experiments in three dimensions. For example, the shape of the upright torso section of Working Model for Reclining Figure (Lincoln Center) may well have evolved from a flint stone with a similar forward thrusting neck that was included in a display of Moore’s found objects in his exhibition at Marlborough Fine Art, London, in June 1971 (fig.8). While not exactly the same, Moore garnered what he called ‘form-knowledge’ from naturally occurring objects, utilising their shapes imaginatively in his sculpture.4 In 1963 Moore explained to the critic David Sylvester how exactly he worked with these natural objects:

Moore made numerous maquettes for two-piece sculptures between 1959 and 1964 using these techniques, sometimes making only very slight alterations between each one. Not all of these maquettes were scaled up into full size sculptures, although some were cast in bronze as small table-top sculptures. Moore explained:

According to Moore’s biographer Donald Hall, Moore made a series of small maquettes for the Lincoln Center project in the summer of 1962.7 It is not known whether the final plaster maquette for Working Model for Reclining Figure (Lincoln Center) survived, and no bronze casts of it were made. However, in addition to this maquette, one other design under consideration for the Lincoln Center site was enlarged in plaster to an intermediary, ‘working model’ size. This second sculpture became Two Piece Reclining Figure No.5 1963–4 (Tate T02294), and is identified as an ‘alternative project for the Lincoln Center Sculpture’ in the artist’s catalogue raisonné.8 The enlargement process, which was undertaken in the winter of 1962–3, would have involved charting and measuring specific points on the surface of the maquettes to ensure the sculptures were scaled up accurately. Scaling-up was carried out in the White Studio at Hoglands or, if the weather was fine, outdoors on the studio terrace (fig.9).9 Much of this work would have been undertaken by one or more of Moore’s sculpture assistants, who in 1962–3 included Geoffrey Greetham, Robert Holding, Roland Piché, Ron Robertson-Swann, and Isaac Witkin.


Moore’s assistants would have initially constructed an armature to the required size and rough shape for each section of the sculpture. The armature would have been made up of numerous lengths of wood and possibly chicken wire, and then draped in scrim, a bandage-like fabric. Successive layers of plaster were then built up over the hollow structure until only a short section of each armature rod was exposed. The armature served not only a structural purpose, but was also used to facilitate the enlargement process, with the end of each rod corresponding to a precise point on the surface of the sculpture.10 After modelling the sculpture to the required shape and size, Moore would then have concentrated on the surface texture. Using an array of tools – including saws, chisels, and files – he created different types of markings, grooves and cuts depending on the wetness of the plaster. 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’.11 The surface of the plaster was captured in the casting process and an examination of the bronze surface of Working Model for Reclining Figure (Lincoln Center) shows how Moore created a range of textures using a number of different tools including fine points, graters and spatulas (fig.10).

After they were completed, the two working models were applied with colour to make the plaster look more like bronze. Moore did this ‘because on white plaster the light and shade acts quite differently, throwing back a reflected light on itself and making the forms softer, less powerful ... even weightless’. ¹² Importantly, it also allowed Moore to gauge what the two darkly coloured bronze sculptures would look like in water. The two painted plaster working models were thus positioned within a small swimming pool at Hoglands (fig.11).13 Following this test, Moore concluded that Two Piece Reclining Figure No.5 ‘was not so good at rising out of the water’ and so the decision was made to enlarge Working Model for Reclining Figure (Lincoln Center) for the New York commission.14

Having decided which sculpture he wanted to make, Moore set to work building the full-size plaster in a specially constructed studio on the grounds at Hoglands (fig.12). The full-size plaster was completed in August 1964, whereupon it was carved into pieces and shipped to the Noack Foundry in Berlin, where the individual parts were cast in bronze before being welded together. During the 1950s and early 1960s Moore used a number of different foundries in London and Paris but started working with Noack in 1958 following an introduction by the dealer Harry Fischer.15 By then Noack was regarded as one of the best bronze foundries able to undertake large-scale castings and in 1967 Moore stated, ‘I use the Noack foundry for casting most of my work because in my opinion, Noack is the best bronze founder I know ... Also, the Noack foundry is reliable in all ways – in keeping to dates of delivery – and in sustaining the quality of their work’.16 The casting, welding and patinating of Reclining Figure 1963–5 took almost a year to complete, but the finished work was flown to New York in July 1965.

Given the timescale involved in creating the Lincoln Center Reclining Figure, it is likely that Moore only considered casting the plaster working model into bronze after the full-size version had been installed in New York. Working Model for Reclining Figure (Lincoln Center) was also cast at the Noack Foundry, in an edition of two. The sculpture is inscribed with Moore’s signature and stamped with the foundry mark on the back of the figure towards the bottom (fig.13).

It is unclear which casting technique was used to create this bronze sculpture, but whether the lost wax or sand casting method was used, the foundry technicians at Noack would still have had to carve up the plaster sculpture into smaller pieces so that moulds could be created of each piece. The inside of each mould would then have been filled with molten bronze. After the bronze had hardened it was removed from the mould revealing a section of sculpture. Once all the pieces of the sculpture had been cast they would be welded together. Finally, the casting seams would have been filed down so that the joins between each section were practically imperceptible.

After being assembled at the foundry the bronze sculpture was probably returned to Moore so that he could check the quality of casting and make decisions about the patination. A patina is the surface colour of a sculpture and is usually achieved by applying chemical solutions to the pre-heated bronze surface. This sculpture has a dark brown patina, overlaid with green shades that have probably developed over time as a result of exposure to the elements (fig.14). In 1963 Moore asserted, ‘I always patinate bronze myself’, explaining that since he had conceived the sculpture it would be unlikely that someone else would be able to replicate the exact colour he wanted.17 However, it is known that Noack would sometimes patinate Moore’s sculpture at the foundry. But even in these instances Moore was still able to adjust the patina when the sculpture was returned to the studio.

According to the critic Donald Hall ‘the Lincoln Center Reclining Figure is not merely a composite Henry Moore: it is the logical development, and the culmination, of the ideas of the years preceding it’.18 Writing a decade later, the art historian Alan Bowness suggested similarly that the working model and the final incarnation of the sculpture was the climax of Moore’s series of two-piece reclining figures made during the 1960s, which drew analogies between the pose of a reclining woman and landscape formations such as boulders, mountains and cliffs.19 This theme had been explored by Moore as early as 1930, when he created Reclining Figure (Mountains) (fig.15), but it was not until he started making his two-piece reclining figures in the early 1960s that landscape formations actually began to be represented in his work. In a statement about his two-piece reclining figures written in 1961, Moore remarked:

Reflecting on the traces of landscape in Moore’s reclining figures, the critic David Thompson wrote in 1965, ‘I think it could be claimed that Moore is the first sculptor in history to have found a way of expressing his feelings about landscape. Formerly only painters could describe mountains and cliffs and sea-caves’.21 Thompson went on to state that in Working Model for Reclining Figure (Lincoln Center), Moore referred ‘not only to costal scenery but to a specific coastal scene, namely the famous rock at Etretat which appears in paintings by Courbet, Monet, Renoir and others’.22 Following up this point, the critic John Russell has argued that two specific paintings contributed to the compositional form of the Lincoln Center sculpture: Claude Monet’s The Manneporte (Étretat) 1883 (fig.16) and George Seurat’s Le Bec du Hoc, Grandcamp 1885 (Tate N06067) (fig.17), which was owned by Moore’s close friend, the art historian Kenneth Clark.23 While the arched cliff painted by Monet resembles the smaller, hollowed part of Moore’s sculpture, the steep promontory depicted in Seurat’s Le Bec du Hoc, Grandcamp may be compared to the curvaceous protrusions found on the sculpture’s torso, most notably that of the figure’s head.24

Despite Hall’s and Bowness’s assertion that the Lincoln Center sculpture should be understood as the culmination of the sequence of two- and three-piece reclining figures, differences between the design of this sculpture and the other multi-part works of the early 1960s need to be acknowledged. Most significantly, Moore’s description of the work as ‘a woman and rock rising from the water’ indicates clearly that the sculpture should not be understood to represent a figure in two parts, but a single body seen in relation to another object.25 Whereas works such as Two Piece Reclining Figure No.2 1960 illustrate the fragmentation of the body, and thus develop ideas explored in earlier works such as Four-Piece Composition: Reclining Figure 1934 (Tate T02054), Working Model for Reclining Figure (Lincoln Center) is closer in concept to Moore’s multi-part work Two Forms 1934 (fig.18), in which a tall member looms over a smaller rock-like piece. The relationship between the two parts of Working Model for Reclining Figure (Lincoln Center), which seem to have individual identities, is significantly different from the other two-part reclining figure sculptures of the 1960s, where the two parts appear to interact in a way that establishes a unified whole.

As the final work to be discussed in Herbert Read’s 1965 monograph on Henry Moore, the Lincoln Center Reclining Figure (and thereby the working model) is described in exaggerated terms:

Moore’s continuous preoccupation with the subject of the reclining female figure led numerous critics to suggest that he was seeking to present an archetypal vision of the human form.27 As early as 1953, Read, who was a life-long supporter of Moore’s, asserted that ‘in modern Europe we cannot avoid certain humanitarian preoccupations ... The modern sculptor, therefore, more naturally seeks to interpret human form’.28 Moore, according to Read, distinguished himself from his contemporaries by relating ‘the human form to certain universal forms which may be found in nature’.29 By uniting human and natural forms, as can be seen in Moore’s allusions to rocks or bones in Working Model for Reclining Figure (Lincoln Center), Moore was able to break free of what Read saw as the ‘false imprisonment’ of mimetic representation. In his 1953 book Read supported his interpretation by quoting a statement written by Moore in 1934:

These beliefs underpinned Moore’s later work, and anticipated the comment he made in 1967 that when looking for human implications in natural forms, ‘taste is not the guide. I’m not interested in the niceties of a shape’.31 In attempting to create a union of the human body and landscape, Moore identified humanity and the environment as partners within an ‘organic whole’.32

Working Model for Reclining Figure (Lincoln Center) was presented by Henry Moore to the Tate Gallery in 1978 as part of the Henry Moore Gift. The Gift comprised thirty-six sculptures in bronze, marble and plaster and was exhibited in its entirety alongside Tate’s existing collection of Moore’s work in an exhibition celebrating the artist’s eightieth birthday, which opened in June 1978. A press release was duly prepared announcing that ‘The group [of sculptures] is the most substantial gift of works ever given to the Tate by an artist during his lifetime’.33 Working Model for Reclining Figure (Lincoln Center) was exhibited on the lawn outside the gallery during the exhibition (fig.19), which was attended by over 20,500 people, while nearly 11,000 copies of the catalogue were sold.34 At its close in late August the Director of Tate, Norman Reid, reflected in a letter to Moore’s daughter Mary Danowski that although he was sad to see the exhibition come to an end ‘we have the consolation of the splendid group of sculptures which Henry has presented to the nation’.35 In April 1979 the sculpture was returned to Moore so that a bronze base could be made for it. After it was returned to Tate it remained on display in the garden until June 1980.

In the years following the eightieth birthday exhibition Reid and the Tate trustees decided to loan some of Moore’s large-scale works to venues across the country on a long-term basis rather than keep them in storage. Working Model for Reclining Figure (Lincoln Center) has been on loan to the Charing Cross Hospital, London, since 1980, where it is displayed in a specially designed pool.

Working Model for Reclining Figure (Lincoln Center) exists in an edition of two bronzes. The plaster sculpture from which the bronze was cast is held in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.