Reclining Figure

Henry Moore

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]

Artist Henry Moore (British, 1898–1986)
Title Reclining Figure
Date 1933
Medium Reinforced carved concrete
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

Work type sculpture

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

H. W. Janson and the Legacy of Modern Art 2002

–until January 1946
[Buchholz Gallery (1937–1954), Curt Valentin (1902–1954), New York]

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