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Lot 165 PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT PRIVATE COLLECTION
Henry Moore, O.M., C.H. (1898-1986)
Two Forms
Closed20 November 2018
Price Realised
GBP 206,250
More Information
Specialist note
‘Sculpture, for me, must have life in it, vitality. It must have a feeling for organic form, a certain pathos and warmth ... It should always give the impression, whether carved or modelled, of having grown organically, created by pressure from within’ (Moore quoted in H. Read, Henry Moore: A Study of his Life and Work, London, 1965, p. 49).
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Moore began to collect pebbles and stones from the beaches at Happisburgh, Norfolk, and from these he made a number of small carvings, including Two Forms, first conceived in Ironstone in 1934. In these delicate and sensuous carvings, Moore honoured the materials he found, and he welcomed the idea that his sculptures were made from native English stone. Moore was fascinated by the effects of the forces of nature upon this raw material: ‘Pebbles and rocks show Nature’s way of working stone. Smooth, sea-worn pebbles show the wearing away, rubbed treatment of stone and principles of asymmetry’ (Moore quoted in H. Read (ed.), Unit One: The Modern Movement in English Architecture, Paintings and Sculpture, London, 1934, pp. 29-30).
The two smooth, irregular shapes in this small sculpture stand close to each other but do not touch, and they are marked with incisions to the surface that suggest the human form, imbuing the object with an organic potency. This demonstrates Moore’s awareness of the potential of the surrealistic manipulation of shapes, derived through no direct resemblance to a natural form but through Moore’s own distinctive technique and use of his materials. Herbert Read wrote, ‘the organism is now violently distorted, to constitute the super-real forms of a new mythology of the unconscious’ (H. Read, Henry Moore: A Study of his Life and Work, London, 1965, p. 83). The incisions in this sculpture not only relate to the spontaneous mark-making of the contemporary Surrealist movement, but also to the uninhibited imagery of the Cycladic figures which he admired at the British Museum.
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Moore began to collect pebbles and stones from the beaches at Happisburgh, Norfolk, and from these he made a number of small carvings, including Two Forms, first conceived in Ironstone in 1934. In these delicate and sensuous carvings, Moore honoured the materials he found, and he welcomed the idea that his sculptures were made from native English stone. Moore was fascinated by the effects of the forces of nature upon this raw material: ‘Pebbles and rocks show Nature’s way of working stone. Smooth, sea-worn pebbles show the wearing away, rubbed treatment of stone and principles of asymmetry’ (Moore quoted in H. Read (ed.), Unit One: The Modern Movement in English Architecture, Paintings and Sculpture, London, 1934, pp. 29-30).
The two smooth, irregular shapes in this small sculpture stand close to each other but do not touch, and they are marked with incisions to the surface that suggest the human form, imbuing the object with an organic potency. This demonstrates Moore’s awareness of the potential of the surrealistic manipulation of shapes, derived through no direct resemblance to a natural form but through Moore’s own distinctive technique and use of his materials. Herbert Read wrote, ‘the organism is now violently distorted, to constitute the super-real forms of a new mythology of the unconscious’ (H. Read, Henry Moore: A Study of his Life and Work, London, 1965, p. 83). The incisions in this sculpture not only relate to the spontaneous mark-making of the contemporary Surrealist movement, but also to the uninhibited imagery of the Cycladic figures which he admired at the British Museum.