Henry Moore
Reclining Figure
1933
On View in Gertrude Bernoudy Gallery, Room 3
The leading British sculptor of the twentieth century, Henry Moore dedicated his career to experimentation with the human form in varying degrees of abstraction. As in Reclining Figure, Moore often sculpted the body lying lengthwise, a form that when abstracted resembles landscape and geological formations, which Moore associated with ideas of permanence and timelessness. In this work a female figure is composed of three substantial masses-the torso, stomach, and legs bridged by thin struts that extend horizontally along the top of the form. These connectors activate the open spaces in the sculpture and anticipate Moore's later use of taut strings to span the hollows between solid forms. Reclining Figure is one of only approximately twenty-one sculptures Moore made using concrete though he created more than ten thousand artworks during his lifetime. Here he added pigments to the wet concrete before pouring it into a mold, resulting in the mottled coloring that resembles the variegated surface of stone. [Permanent collection label, 2019]
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Artist
Henry Moore
(British, 1898–1986)
- Title Reclining Figure
- Date 1933
- Medium Reinforced carved concrete
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Dimensions
unframed | 20 3/4 x 31 1/2 x 12 1/4 in.
pedestal | 36 1/2 x 38 1/2 x 20 7/8 in.
- Credit line University purchase, Kende Sale Fund, 1946
- Object number WU 3771
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Work type
sculpture
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Currently on View
Gertrude Bernoudy Gallery, Room 3
Face and Figure in European Art, 1928–1945
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 01/25/2013 - 04/21/2013
North Foyer installation Fall 2006
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 10/25/2006 - 12/18/2006
Affinity of Form: African and Modern European Art
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 08/27/1999 - 10/24/1999
Washington University Collection of Modern Paintings and Sculpture from Daumier to Pollock
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 04/06/1966 - 05/08/1966
Opening Exhibition of Mark C. Steinberg Memorial Hall
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 04/29/1960
An Exhibition of Contemporary Art
Fine Arts Center Gallery, University of Arkansas, 04/15/1951 - 05/15/1951
Henry Moore
Art Institute of Chicago, 04/17/1947 - 05/18/1947
Museum of Modern Art, New York, 12/17/1946 - 03/16/1947
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 06/08/1947 - 09/07/1947
Origins of Modern Sculpture
Detroit Institute of Arts, 01/22/1946 - 03/03/1946
Saint Louis Art Museum, 03/30/1946 - 05/15/1946
Four Modern Sculptors: Brancusi, Calder, Lipchitz, Moore
Contemporary Arts Center (Cincinnati, Ohio), 10/01/1946 - 11/15/1946
International Surrealist Exhibition
New Burlington Galleries (London, England), 06/11/1936 - 07/04/1936
Unit 1
Mayor Gallery (London, England), 04/10/1934 - 04/30/1934
Sculpture and Drawings by Henry Moore
Leicester Galleries (London, England), 11/01/1933 - 11/30/1933
–until January 1946
[Buchholz Gallery (1937–1954), Curt Valentin (1902–1954), New York]
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