Although Two Heads 1924-25 (LH 25) may appear unfinished, it was probably taken as far as Moore wished at the time. Like many other twentieth-century sculptors before him, he became fascinated by the notion of letting the material help him to shape the final image. Uncovering the form, and releasing it from the block of stone or wood, was a cardinal aim. In Two Heads the process of emergence is forcefully dramatised.

The lump of Mansfield stone serving as a base has been left rough. One side is striated with lines, like fissures in a rock-face. Above them, Moore’s chisel-marks are left as raw evidence of his belief in ‘carving direct’. The heads themselves seem to grow out of this inchoate matter, and their smooth surfaces contrast with the ruggedness below. All the same, Moore has stopped some way short of refining them into flawlessness. They still display evidence of the act of cutting, and neither possesses anything more than the most simplified of facial features.

The higher of the two heads is thrust upwards, at a still more extreme angle than the backward-tilting head of Woman with Upraised Arms (LH 23) carved during the same period. Her expression is clearly anguished, whereas the heads in this sculpture remain emotionally enigmatic. They are hardly more informative, in physiognomic terms, than the faces crowning Cycladic figures. Moore admired the British Museum’s carvings from the Cycladic era, and Two Heads shows unmistakable signs of their influence. The piece testifies to Moore’s fascination with stripping the human form of anything that might detract from its primordial power.

Text: Richard Cork. Taken from Celebrating Moore (p.92), Lund Humphries 2006