Henry Moore Artwork Catalogue
Seated Woman
Seated Woman
From the mid-1950s until the early
1960s the solitary, seated female figure became a central theme in Moore’s
work. The subject was not new to him; in the 1920s and 1930s he developed his
characteristic treatment of monumental women in a number of drawings and
carvings, in which figures sit solidly on simple geometric blocks. Moore’s
renewed interest in the theme can be specifically related to the commission for
a large-scale work to be sited at the new headquarters of UNESCO in Paris.
Initially, Moore thought a seated figure might be suitable and he made a number
of maquettes testing out various poses. While the final work for UNESCO was a
large reclining figure (LH 416), his maquettes formed the basis for later works
such as Draped Seated Woman 1957-58 (LH 428).[1] Moore
conceived Seated Woman in the years
immediately following the Paris commission although it was not enlarged and
cast in bronze until 1975.[2]
...that kind of idea can’t
begin from a drawing; in that particular case there is a sort of sense of touch
of the back of that figure which is what my mother had when I had to massage
her when she suffered from rheumatism. This must have come from actuality, from
the handling of the material. [4]
This recollection of his mother supported the theory
of Erich Neumann, who wrote a psychoanalytic appraisal of Moore’s work, that the maternal aspects of his large women related to
those of the archetypal ‘Great Mother’, a symbol of ‘nourishment, shelter and
security’ and ‘the mistress of life and fertility’.[5]
[1] Draped
Seated Woman was installed in various public locations around the globe. In
the UK, the cast on the Stifford Estate in Tower Hamlets, London, became known
as ‘Old Flo’. [2] The artist Phillip King, formerly an
assistant to Moore, describes selecting the maquette for enlargement in Celebrating Moore, ed. David Mitchinson,
Lund Humphries, London, 1998, p. 256 [3] Will
Grohmann, The Art of
Henry Moore, London, 1960, p. 229. [4] Here,
Moore is describing an earlier sculpture also titled Seated Woman (LH 435) cited in David Sylvester, ‘Henry Moore
Talking to David Sylvester’, Listener, 29 August 1963, pp. 305–6. [5] Erich Neumann, The Archetypal World of Henry Moore, Routledge, London, 1959,
pp.31-32.
In 1960, the art historian Will Grohmann analysed Moore’s
seated figures and identified two distinct types. One type he described as a
figure of calm contemplation, the other as one of imminent activity, caught in
the ‘moment before rising, jumping up, going into action.’ Grohmann determined
that the first type of figure was more classical while the second was more
‘demonic’. The demonic type, he suggested, contained some of the same
‘destroying themes’ evident in Moore’s work of the late 1930s and early 1950s.[3]
For Grohmann, one sign of the destroying theme was the distorted body, so works
like Moore’s Woman 1957–58 (LH 439) fell into the ‘demonic’ category. Seated Woman and Woman both portray a recognisable, but disfigured body with
truncated limbs.
In contrast to themes of destruction, Seated Woman also embodies elements inspired by nature which lend
the work an organic vitality. The diminutive head of the figure, which enhances
the monumentality of the body, appears alert, as if scanning the horizon.
Physically, however, she does not seem poised to spring into action. The figure
is footless, her legs rooted to the supporting plinth. The bulbous form of the
skirt can be related to seed pods or shells. It has a telling, straight
incision down its centre which is not at odds with its natural inspiration but
is a definitive mark of the artist. Indeed, the
upper half of Seated Woman clearly
evokes the impression of the artist’s hands forcibly moving the wet plaster
through his fist. Moore linked such processes to an early memory of massaging
his mother’s back: