Henry Moore, O.M., C.H. (1898-1986)

Upright Motive B, conceived in 1968, is both modern in its abstract design, as well as being steeped in ancient symbolic meaning, appearing as a relic of an ancient time. These upright structures were developed from a number of standing figures that Moore had conceived at the beginning of the 1950s. Moore had been commissioned to create a sculpture for a courtyard of a new building in Milan, and was inspired by the soaring verticality of a Lombardy poplar tree that contrasted against the horizontal form of the building beside it. Although Moore never completed this commission, he started to experiment with vertical forms and created organically formed, abstract sculptures. In the present work Moore experiments particularly with texture; in places the sculpture is smooth and polished, and in others, uneven and rough.

For Moore, the Upright Motives had a religious meaning; he found that when viewed collectively, they gave an image of the three crosses of the Crucifixion. Moore explained the development of this association, 'I began a series of maquettes. I started by balancing different forms one above the other – with results rather like the North West American totem poles – but as I continued the attempts gained more unity, also perhaps became more organic – and then one in particular (later to be named Glenkiln Cross) took on the shape of a crucifix… When I came to carry out some of these maquettes in their full final size, three of them grouped themselves together, and in my mind assumed the aspect of a crucifixion scene as though framed against the sky above Golgotha' (H. Moore in D. Mitchinson (ed.), Henry Moore Sculpture, London and Basingstoke, 1981, p. 134).