HENRY MOORE (1898-1986)


Drawing for Metal Sculpture signed and dated 'Moore 38' (lower left)pen and ink, pencil, and chalk on paper15 x 22 in (38.2 x 56 cm)Executed in 1938
|ProvenanceElizabeth Andrews.Leicester Galleries, London.Galerie Gérald Cramer, Geneva (no. 117).Peter H. Deitsch, New York.Acquired from the above on March 6, 1957.ExhibitedVenice, Venice Biennale & Milan, Galeria d'Arte Moderna, Sculpture and Drawings by Henry Moore, 1948, no. 48 (illustrated p. 280).Lincoln, DeCordova Museum, Henry Moore, January 22-February 19, 1967, no. S.E.303.LiteratureH. Read (ed.), Henry Moore: Complete Sculpture, catalogue raisonné, vol. I, London, 1949, pl. 140a.A. Gould (ed.), Henry Moore, Complete Drawings 1930-39, vol. II, London, 1998, no. AG 38.49 (illustrated p. 211).Henry Moore was a prolific draughtsman who used the work on paper medium to investigate the forms of three-dimensional objects. These highly detailed studies stand as evidence of a precocious talent and reveal Moore's working methods. When asked to expound upon this practice, Moore explained that drawing is "a means of generating ideas for sculptures, tapping oneself for the initial idea; and as a way of sorting out ideas and developing them" (quoted in 'The Sculptor Speaks' in The Listener, London, August 18, 1937).Although Moore used drawing in a preparatory function, he did not hold that they simply were a means to another end. Rather, with the suggestion of place and atmosphere, the drawings are fully realized works of art themselves. In the Drawing for Metal Sculpture there is a clear line of perspective dividing the sky and the ground on which the highly developed structures are situated. Moore's graphic works intermingle human and organic forms with abstract ones, as exemplified by the present work. Throughout the sheet we see some of Moore's most recognizable sculptures, including forms that anticipate the internal/external forms that would pervade his 1940s and 50s output. Here, Moore deftly applied chalk for shading and crosshatching with pen to lend the forms a great sense of dimensionality. As Moore elucidated, "Drawing is the expression and the explanation of the shape of a solid object...an attempt to understand the full three dimensionality of the human figure, to learn about the object one is drawing, and to present it on the flat surface of the paper" (quoted in A. G. Wilkinson, The Drawings of Henry Moore (exhibition catalogue), Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 1977, p. 12).