Henry Moore
Ideas for Upright Internal/External Forms, 1939-40, c.
Pencil, wax crayon, watercolour, pen and ink on off-white wove paper
25.4 x 43.2 cm
10 x 17 in
10 x 17 in
A leaf from Ideas for Sculpture Drawing Book
Copyright The Artist
Henry Moore was one of the eminent modernist artists working in twentieth-century Britain. He achieved renown in both drawing and sculpture, using draughtsmanship to work through ideas for his sculpture....
Henry Moore was one of the eminent modernist artists working in twentieth-century Britain. He achieved renown in both drawing and sculpture, using draughtsmanship to work through ideas for his sculpture. Ideas for Upright Internal/External Forms is a sheet from one of his sketchbooks. He often made compendia of studies around a single idea, setting himself narrow parameters – in this case an ‘upright form’, many of them hollowed out – and reiterating a single figure type in many different guises on one sheet. The effect is a bravura show of draughtsmanship redolent of Renaissance masters such as Donatello and Raphael, who also used drawings to ‘circle around’ a three-dimensional form in two dimensions. In Moore’s case, the hollowed-out figures are at once redolent of pregnant female bodies and the decimated corpses resulting from the struggle of war.
Provenance
Private Collection, acquired directly from the artist, circa 1942The Court Gallery, London (Denys Wilcox)
Private Collection, 2008
Literature
This work is recorded by the Henry Moore Foundation under the catalogue number HMF 1482B.1
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