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A watercolor and ink drawing with colored crayons on off-white paper of sculpture designs.

The drawing shows numerous ideas for sculpture and include at the top left, a rectangular shaped object placed vertically with a rounded bottom and clock face at the top; in the top center, a squat oval shape with a peg-like top and an open center; in the bottom right a tall figure with wavy irregular sides and a small round at the top; to the left is another tall figure with a dome shaped top; and in the bottom left a figure with a top made up of two lobes joined at the top and a rounded base.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1993.232
People
Henry Moore, British (Castleford, W. Yorks, U.K. 1898 - 1986 Much Hadham, Herts, U.K.)
Title
Ideas for Sculpture; verso: Reclining figure on a pedestal
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
1940
Culture
British
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/312069

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Watercolor, gouache, black ink, colored crayons, orange resinous ink, transparent crayon (wax resist), incised lines on off-white wove paper; verso: black chalk
Dimensions
42.8 x 25.4 cm (16 7/8 x 10 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: l.r., black ink: Moore 40

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
[Buchholz Gallery, Curt Valentin, New York, New York], sold; to Lois Orswell, Pomfret Center, Connecticut, 1944, gift; to Harvard University Art Museums, 1993.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Lois Orswell
Copyright
© Henry Moore Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Accession Year
1993
Object Number
1993.232
Division
Modern and Contemporary Art
Contact
am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Commentary
Label from "A Decade of Collecting: Recent Acquisitions of Prints and Drawings from 1480 to 1940," Fogg, 2000:
This drawing was once part of a sketchbook from 1939–40, of which forty-two pages are known. Moore filled countless notebooks with richly varied explorations of sculptural forms. The sideways stringed "head" at the upper right is related to a diminutive (512 inches high) lead-and-string sculpture from 1939. In the late 1930s Moore began to experiment with wax crayons and watercolor to create a resist. After drawing on the paper with transparent crayon, he would apply watercolor to the whole; the drawn areas would not "take" the washes and would emerge from the background. The drawing would then be embellished with ink and colored crayon to describe and animate the forms. --Miriam Stewart

Publication History

  • Ann Garrould, ed., Henry Moore: Complete Drawings 1930-39, Lund Humphries (London, 1998), no. AG 39-40.37/HMF 1489, repr.
  • Dorothy Kosinski, Henry Moore: Sculpting the 20th Century, exh. cat., Dallas Museum of Art and Yale University Press (U.S.) (Dallas, New Haven and London, 2001), cat. no. 152, fig. 152
  • Marjorie B. Cohn and Sarah Kianovsky, Lois Orswell, David Smith, and Modern Art, exh. cat., Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2002), cat. no. 174, fig. 18 (color), pp. 47, 130, 371, 373, 380, 381
  • Valerie Fletcher, Marvelous Objects: Surrealist Sculpture from Paris to New York, exh. cat., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and DelMonico Books Prestel (Munich, London, New York, 2015), pp. 67, 186, fig. 66, ill. (color)

Exhibition History

  • 20th Century Abstract Painting and Sculpture, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, 04/16/1947 - 05/18/1947
  • 20th Century Art in New England, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Boston, 05/06/1948 - 06/30/1948
  • A Century of Sculpture, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, 03/30/1950 - 05/18/1950
  • [Benefit exhibition for the Boston Arts Festival], Margaret Brown Gallery, Boston, 05/08/1956 - 05/29/1956
  • A Decade of Collecting: Recent Acquisitions of Prints and Drawings from 1480 to 1940, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 03/25/2000 - 07/02/2000
  • Henry Moore: Sculpting the 20th Century, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, 02/25/2001 - 05/27/2001
  • Lois Orswell, David Smith, and Modern Art, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 09/21/2002 - 02/16/2003
  • Under Cover: Artists' Sketchbooks, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 08/01/2006 - 10/22/2006
  • Ancient to Modern, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/31/2012 - 06/01/2013
  • 32Q: 1310 Surrealism, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 10/19/2017 - 04/05/2018
  • Marvelous Objects: Surrealist Sculpture from Paris to New York, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., 10/29/2015 - 02/15/2016

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art at am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu