‡Henry Moore OM

‡Henry Moore OM, CH (1898-1986)

Family Group

Signed and dated Moore/51 (lower right)

Pencil, crayon, charcoal, watercolour and ink

37 x 43.7cm

Provenance:

Leicester Galleries, London, where purchased by Peter Meyer, March 1954 (£63);

The Collection of Peter Meyer;

And by descent

Literature:

Ann Garrould, Henry Moore Complete Drawings 1950-76 Volume 4 (London, 2003), pp.48-49, no.AG51.14 (illustrated)

Exhibited:

Antwerp, British Council, C.A.W. Gallery, 1953, no.38 (catalogue not traced), where lent by the artist

This work is recorded in the Henry Moore Foundation catalogue (no. HMF 2710). It demonstrates what Moore referred to as 'the two-way sectional line method', in which a series of lines follow the curves of the figures, emphasising their three-dimensional forms. This was something he later translated to his sculpture, by interrupting the smooth surface of the bronze with string-like lines. Moore's interest in the subject of family groups in the late 1940s and early 1950s perhaps reflects the birth of his daughter Mary in 1946.