Henry Moore O.M., C.H. (British, 1898-1986) Reclining Figure: Pointed Legs signed and numbered 'Moore 7/9' (on the bronze base) bronze with a brown patina 22.9 cm. (9 in.) long (including the bronze base) Conceived in 1979 Footnotes: Provenance With Adler Fielding Gallery, Johannesburg, from whom acquired by Private Collection, U.S.A. Literature Alan Bowness, Henry Moore: Volume 5, Sculpture and Drawings, Sculpture 1974-80, Lund Humphries, London, 1983, p.45, cat.no.LH777 (ill.b&w., another cast) 'From the very beginning the reclining figure has been my main theme', Moore has declared. 'The first one I made was around 1924, and probably more than half of my sculptures since then have been reclining figures'' (H. Moore, quoted in A. Wilkinson (ed.), Henry Moore, Writings and Conversations, Aldershot, 2002, p.212). The recumbent female form was a theme Henry Moore returned to throughout his nearly sixty-year career. 'The human figure is the basis of all my sculpture,' Moore professed, 'and that for me means the female nude.' Most of Moore's female figures are positioned seated or reclining, a configuration that initially stemmed from Moore's use of stone as his preferred medium and the structural weakness of the material in a standing figure's ankles. 'The reclining figure gives the most freedom, compositionally and spatially. The seated figure must have something to sit on. You can't free it from its pedestal. A reclining figure can recline on any surface. It is free and stable at the same time. It fits in with my belief that sculpture should be permanent, should last for an eternity' (D. Mitchinson, (ed.), Henry Moore Sculpture, with Comments by the Artist, London, 1981, p.86). The beautifully modulating form for the present work exemplifies Moore's mastery of the bronze medium. Propped on her forearms with her attention directed to her left and legs facing a contra-direction, Reclining Figure: Pointed Legs is animatedly alert and captures an instant of the figure's movement. The motion evoked by the form's curvilinear shape endows the figure with a plasticity that seemingly defies the bronze medium. Although reclining, this brilliantly dynamic sculpture presents dramatic profiles when seen from various viewpoints. The points of the figure's head, breasts, and attenuated arms and legs are counterbalanced by the soft curves of the woman's arching back, stomach, and propped legs. The recumbent woman is an artistic trope harkening to Ingres, Delacroix, Manet, among others, and references the Orientalist fantasy of the odalisque, a nude or partially clad harem girl. However, while most of Moore's reclining women are nude, Moore scholar David Sylvester argues: 'though they lie with knees apart or thighs apart, their overall pose doesn't betoken the availability commonly implied in reclining female nudes' (D. Sylvester, Henry Moore, Tate Gallery, London, 1968, p.5). Moore's women are in contradiction to the voyeuristic gaze of his predecessors. 'I am not conscious of erotic elements in [my work], and I have never set out to create an erotic work of art,' Moore stated. 'I have no objection to people interpreting my forms and sculptures erotically...but I do not have any desire to rationalize the eroticism in my work, to think out consciously what Freudian or Jungian symbols may lie behind what I create' (quoted in A. Wilkinson, ed., Henry Moore: Writings and Conversations, Berkeley, 2002, p.115). 'These reclining women are not the reclining women of a Maillol or a Matisse,' Will Grohmann wrote. 'They are women in repose but also something more profound...the woman as the concept of fruitfulness, the Mother Earth. Moore, who once pointed to the maternal element in the 'Reclining Figures', may well see in them an element of eternity, the 'Great Female', who is both birth-giving nature and the wellspring of the unconscious... To Henry Moore, the 'Reclining Figures' are no mere external objects; he identifies himself with them, as well as the earth and the whole realm of motherhood' (W. Grohmann, The Art of Henry Moore, London, 1960, p.43). 'I want to be quite free of having to find a 'reason' for doing the Reclining Figures,' Moore declared, 'and freer still of having to find a 'meaning' for them. The vital thing for an artist is to have a subject that allows him to try out all kinds of formal ideas—things that he doesn't yet know about for certain but wants to experiment with, as Cézanne did in his 'Bather' series. In my case the reclining figure provides chances of that sort. The subject matter is given. It's settled for you, and you know it and like it, so that within the subject that you've done a dozen times before, you are free to invent a completely new form-idea' (quoted in J. Russell, Henry Moore, London, 1968, p.48). This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: AR AR Goods subject to Artists Resale Right Additional Premium. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com