Head of Serpent is a small, wall-mounted stone sculpture of a snake-like head thrusting forward from a circular base. Sharply incised narrow ovals on either side of the smoothly rounded head indicate the serpent’s eyes. Its jaws are improbably thick, and seen from the side the snake seems to smile. Inside its mouth are two triangular notches and, mysteriously, two neatly drilled holes. The cream travertine marble used in this work has a slight graining, producing black-brown streaks that run along the serpent’s head, emphasising its length and narrow eyes.
The sculpture was made in 1927 when Moore was working as a tutor at the Royal College of Art in London. Moore had taken up a teaching post in the sculpture department in 1924 after gaining his diploma from the college and continued working there until 1931. Although nothing is known about the precise circumstances in which Head of Serpent was made, it was probably carved at Moore’s studio, 3 Grove Studio, Adie Road, Hammersmith, where Moore lived and worked between 1926 and 1929. The sculpture is numbered 45 in the artist’s catalogue raisonné of 1957, which notes that it was made in the autumn of 1927. If correct, this means that the sculpture was completed only a few months before it was exhibited in Moore’s first solo exhibition in January 1928 at the Warren Gallery, London. This exhibition contained sculptures and drawings made over a seven-year period, the earliest work dating from 1922. When it was exhibited at the Warren Gallery, Head of Serpent was listed in the exhibition pamphlet as Snake’s Head. It was re-titled Head of Serpent in 1944 when it was included in critic Herbert Read’s book Henry Moore: Sculpture and Drawings, which was later revised and reissued as the artist’s catalogue raisonné. Subsequent published literature has repeated the title Head of Serpent, but on entering the Tate collection its title was initially revised to Head of a Serpent in order to make the title read more easily. In 2014 the title was changed back to that listed in the artist’s 1957 catalogue raisonné.
Alice Correia
November 2012
Notes