Four-Piece Composition: Reclining Figure

Four-Piece Composition: Reclining Figure (LH154)

Background

Moore worked on the sculpture at his studio on Parkhill Road, in Hampstead, by directly carving the stone without making prior models, but rather simply responding to the material. Some of More's contemporaneous drawings display related themes, with several sheets of shapes evolved from separate body parts. Moore later explained that he "began separating forms from each other in order to be able to relate space and form together". The sculpture was not just the parts, but also how they were arranged, their relationships and the spaces between and around them.

Description

The completed work measures 175 by 457 by 203 millimetres (6.9 in × 18.0 in × 8.0 in). It comprises four elements of polished Cumberland alabaster, a fine grained and soft form of opaque greyish gypsum with darker brownish mottling and veins. These four elements are arranged on a small block of Purbeck Marble, like a picture frame, but they do not touch each other. The individual elements are abstracted, but arranged together they become parts of a human figure; they were later described by Moore as a head, body, and leg, and a small piece that Moore called the umbilicus connecting the others together.

Three elements are arranged in alignment: the head like a disc, with a large U-shaped notch to create a nose and mouth, or possibly arms and shoulders; the small rounded umbilicus like a pebble; and the leg, starting with a wider thigh or buttock and then narrowing through a knee bend. Then head has incised decoration of two differently sized circles, one perhaps an eye above the mouth-like notch, connected by a curved line. Behind these three pieces is the body, which curves underneath the leg; this piece can also be interpreted as a second leg. This element also has an incised circle linked to an incised straight line; the circle can be interpreted as a nipple or a second umbilicus. Moore later said the incised elements were inspired by Palaeolithic bone engravings, but some art critics have drawn links with the contemporaneous works of Ben Nicholson.

Some art critics have classified it as a

The work was first exhibited at the Zwemmer Gallery in London, in October 1935. It did not find a buyer, and was exhibited with other works by Moore at the Leicester Galleries in 1936. It was included in a retrospective exhibition shown in New York, Chicago and San Francisco in 1946–47, and it was purchased by Lois Culver Orswell in December 1946 for $1,300. She exchanged it for a sculpture by Jacques Lipchitz in 1952, and it was still owned by the gallery of Curt Valentin on his death in 1954.

It was sold in 1955 to art dealer

See also

• List of sculptures by Henry Moore

Notes

References

• Four-Piece Composition: Reclining Figure, 1934, Tate Gallery
• Henry Moore: Sculptural Process and Public Identity: Four-Piece Composition: Reclining Figure, 1934, Tate Gallery
• Four-Piece Composition (Reclining Figure) by Henry Moore, Art Fund