- Artist
- Henry Moore OM, CH 1898–1986
- Medium
- Chalk, ink and watercolour on paper
- Dimensions
- Support: 279 × 381 mm
frame: 432 × 535 × 20 mm - Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased 1959
- Reference
- T00271
Catalogue entry
T00271 FOUR FORMS, DRAWING FOR SCULPTURE 1938
Inscr. ‘Moore 38’ b.r.
Chalk, wash and indian ink, 11×15 (28×38).
Purchased from the Executors of the late E. C. Gregory (Grant-in-Aid) 1959.
Coll: E. McKnight Kauffer, February 1939; E. C. Gregory.
Exh: Mayor Gallery, February 1939 (6); Temple Newsam, Leeds, July–August 1941 (64); New York, Chicago and San Francisco, 1946–7 (68, repr. p.50); British Council tour, Australia, 1947–8 (23); British Council, Brussels, Paris, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Düsseldorf and Berne, 1949–50 (64); The Meaning of Sculpture, Cape Town, 1952 (Part 2, No.56); The Modern Movement in British Water-Colour Painting, Norwich, December 1957–February 1958 (53).
Lit: Neumann, 1959, p.70, repr. pl.41.
Repr: Sweeney, 1946, p.50; Read and Sylvester, I, 1957, p.206.
This is one of a number of drawings of sculptural forms in landscape settings made 1937–8.
Writing in 1937 Henry Moore stated: ‘My drawings are done mainly as a help towards making sculpture - as a means of generating ideas for sculpture, tapping oneself for the original idea; and as a way of sorting out ideas and developing them’ (Listener, 18 August 1937; reprinted in Read and Sylvester, op. cit., p.xxxv). The form second from the left is identical with the small elm wood and string ‘Head’ of 1938 in the possession of Ernö Goldfinger (Read and Sylvester, op. cit., p.12, No.188, repr. p.126; also repr. Neumann, 1959, pl.40); the other forms are related less closely to other sculptures of the same period.
Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, II
Explore
- abstraction(8,615)
-
- from recognisable sources(3,634)
-
- figure(2,270)
- non-representational(6,161)
-
- irregular forms(2,007)
- body(4,878)
-
- bone(48)
- head / face(2,497)