Henry Moore OM, CH

Stringed Figure is an asymmetrical sculpture made of bronze and two sets of elasticated strings. The bronze part of the sculpture is concave like a bowl, and has an irregular rimmed edge that curves into three rounded petal-like forms. It sits upright on its side and is attached to a pine wood base (fig.1). Within the hollowed space of the bronze are two very different protrusions. On the left-hand side is a ridge, triangular in profile, which projects outwards from the concave bronze base, forming a wall or barrier between the left-hand petal and the other two-thirds of the sculpture. The second protrusion – a rounded bump that appears to swell from the concave surface – is near the top of the sculpture in the middle.

The triangular ridge acts as an intersection for a set of white elasticated strings which span across the sculpture from the left-hand edge to the right-hand edge. On the left near the rim, the bronze has been pierced by twenty tiny holes in the shape of an incomplete circle (fig.2). The string has been threaded through the holes, and from the rear creates a running stitch pattern. Seen from the concave front, the twenty strings extend from this near circular arrangement and stretch in a parallel formation towards the triangular prism, which has been pierced with a straight row of holes running along its top. Each string passes through one hole and out the other side of the prism, from which they fan outwards towards the right of the sculpture. The string then threads through twenty holes that parallel the curved edge of the right-hand rim so that, when seen from the rear, they form an arc of stitches (fig.3). Passing through the protruding prism the strings create a type of v-shape as they spread more-or-less horizontally inwards from the outer left edge, and then outwards towards the right edge.