Henry Moore Artwork Catalogue
Draped Reclining Mother and Baby
Draped Reclining Mother and Baby
Edition summary
Bronze edition of 9+1
Primary: plaster, 1983
Foundry: The Morris Singer Foundry Ltd.
Moore wrote: ‘There are
three fundamental poses of the human figure. One is standing, the other is
seated, and the third is lying down… But of all the three poses, the reclining
figure gives me the most freedom compositionally and spatially.’
Draped
Reclining Mother and Baby was completed when Moore was 85
years old. The work combines his key themes – the reclining figure, the mother
and child and internal/external forms. It is also a synthesis of figure and
landscape. The reclining figure has always had references to the land for
Moore, but a reclining figure with a child is rare in his work. He experimented
with the position of the baby, placing it first on and then against the
mother’s thigh, but it seemed unprotected until he finally moved it into the cradle
of the mother’s arm. The mother’s protective arm, which encloses the child in
her concave body, relates to internal and external forms and the seashells in
Moore’s collection of found objects.