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Lot Essay
Moore created a series of terracotta models for a commission that had pre-dated the war. The architect Walter Gropius, the erstwhile director of the Weimar Bauhaus, had emigrated to Britain and was working on a design for a school in Impington, near Cambridge. Gropius approached Moore to provide a sculpture for the project, and they agreed that he would create a family subject. The beginning of the war brought an end to the project, but in 1944, Henry Morris, director of Cambridgeshire schools, informed Moore that he might be able to obtain funding for the project, and asked him to resume his work on the family sculpture.
Moore later recalled: 'I said yes, because the idea right from the start had appealed to me and I began drawings in note book form of family groups. From these notebook drawings I made a number of small maquettes' (quoted in A. Wilkinson (ed.), Henry Moore: Writings and Conversations, Berkeley, 2002, p. 273).
Following the completion of fourteen terracotta models, depicting both three- and four-member family groups, the prospect for funding came to nothing. 'I carried out three or four of the six inch maquettes more fully into a slightly larger size for my own satisfaction,' Moore wrote, 'and then went on with other work' (ibid.). Then in 1947, the 'Family group' commission was again revived, this time for two school sites, in Stevenage and Harlow, Hertfordshire. Moore was elated at this development, 'for here was the chance of carrying through one of the ideas on a large scale which I had wanted to do' (ibid., pp. 273-274). Moore eventually chose two of his three-figure family maquettes for enlargement to life-size for installation at the two schools. The bronze group for Stevenage was cast in 1949 (HMF 269) and the Hadene stone version for Harlow was completed in 1955 (HMF 364); the present work was a model for the stone version.
Moore favoured the triadic configurations for the school commissions
possibly because they reflected his own family make-up: his daughter,
Mary, was born in 1946. The theme had been chosen as the 'new' towns of Stevenage and Harlow were developed after the war to promote a better quality of life and family values outside London. In the four figure family sculptures, Moore divides the pieces into male and female halves, but here the child sits on the mother's knee while the father places a reassuring hand on her shoulder, lending the work an air of domestic harmony and tranquility, its bronze surface finished with a vibrant green patina demonstrating the diverse effects achievable with the medium. While maintaining respect for the inherent characteristics of each material, Moore expanded his approach beyond direct carving to explore the new possibilities available through casting. The artist learnt much about the qualities of bronze by casting his own small-scale works using the 'lost wax' method in a miniature foundry at the bottom of his garden. Moore cast his own works for a year before employing professional foundries in London and Berlin, which enabled him to concentrate on sculpting.
Moore worked on all of his bronze sculptures after they returned from the foundry and described the 'exciting but tricky' process of patination: 'A new cast to begin with is just like a new-minted penny, with a kind of slight tarnished effect on it ... Bronze is very sensitive to chemicals, and bronze naturally in the open air (particularly near the sea) will turn with time and the action of the atmosphere to a beautiful green. But sometimes one can't wait for nature to have its go at the bronze, and you can speed it up by treating the bronze with different acids which will produce different effects ... afterwards you can then work on the bronze, work on the surface and let the bronze come through again, after you've made certain patinas. You rub it and wear it down as your hand might by a lot of handling. From this point of view bronze is a most responsive and unbelievably varied material, and it will go on being a favourite material for sculptors. You can, in bronze, reproduce any other material you care to' (see P. James, Henry Moore on Sculpture, London, 1966, p. 140).
Moore later recalled: 'I said yes, because the idea right from the start had appealed to me and I began drawings in note book form of family groups. From these notebook drawings I made a number of small maquettes' (quoted in A. Wilkinson (ed.), Henry Moore: Writings and Conversations, Berkeley, 2002, p. 273).
Following the completion of fourteen terracotta models, depicting both three- and four-member family groups, the prospect for funding came to nothing. 'I carried out three or four of the six inch maquettes more fully into a slightly larger size for my own satisfaction,' Moore wrote, 'and then went on with other work' (ibid.). Then in 1947, the 'Family group' commission was again revived, this time for two school sites, in Stevenage and Harlow, Hertfordshire. Moore was elated at this development, 'for here was the chance of carrying through one of the ideas on a large scale which I had wanted to do' (ibid., pp. 273-274). Moore eventually chose two of his three-figure family maquettes for enlargement to life-size for installation at the two schools. The bronze group for Stevenage was cast in 1949 (HMF 269) and the Hadene stone version for Harlow was completed in 1955 (HMF 364); the present work was a model for the stone version.
Moore favoured the triadic configurations for the school commissions
possibly because they reflected his own family make-up: his daughter,
Mary, was born in 1946. The theme had been chosen as the 'new' towns of Stevenage and Harlow were developed after the war to promote a better quality of life and family values outside London. In the four figure family sculptures, Moore divides the pieces into male and female halves, but here the child sits on the mother's knee while the father places a reassuring hand on her shoulder, lending the work an air of domestic harmony and tranquility, its bronze surface finished with a vibrant green patina demonstrating the diverse effects achievable with the medium. While maintaining respect for the inherent characteristics of each material, Moore expanded his approach beyond direct carving to explore the new possibilities available through casting. The artist learnt much about the qualities of bronze by casting his own small-scale works using the 'lost wax' method in a miniature foundry at the bottom of his garden. Moore cast his own works for a year before employing professional foundries in London and Berlin, which enabled him to concentrate on sculpting.
Moore worked on all of his bronze sculptures after they returned from the foundry and described the 'exciting but tricky' process of patination: 'A new cast to begin with is just like a new-minted penny, with a kind of slight tarnished effect on it ... Bronze is very sensitive to chemicals, and bronze naturally in the open air (particularly near the sea) will turn with time and the action of the atmosphere to a beautiful green. But sometimes one can't wait for nature to have its go at the bronze, and you can speed it up by treating the bronze with different acids which will produce different effects ... afterwards you can then work on the bronze, work on the surface and let the bronze come through again, after you've made certain patinas. You rub it and wear it down as your hand might by a lot of handling. From this point of view bronze is a most responsive and unbelievably varied material, and it will go on being a favourite material for sculptors. You can, in bronze, reproduce any other material you care to' (see P. James, Henry Moore on Sculpture, London, 1966, p. 140).