Henry Moore OM, CH

Upright Motive No.2

1955–6, cast c.1958–62

© The Henry Moore Foundation. All Rights Reserved

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Not on display

Artist
Henry Moore OM, CH 1898–1986
Medium
Bronze
Dimensions
Object: 3353 x 768 x 972 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Presented by the artist 1978
Reference
T02275

Display caption

In the mid 1950s, Moore made twelve Upright Motives. These three, though often displayed together, have also been shown independently. A cast of Upright Motive No.2, for example, is sited in the centre of Harlow. Likewise, a cast of Upright Motive No.1: Glenkiln Cross can be found on the Glenkiln estate in Scotland.

Gallery label, August 2004

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Catalogue entry

Entry


Upright Motive No.2 1955–6, cast c.1958–62 is a tall, vertically-orientated four-sided bronze sculpture that resembles a totemic column. It is made up of rounded, undulating forms and irregular geometric shapes that appear to be stacked up on top of each other. An unornamented cuboid forms the base of the sculpture, on top of which sits a smaller cube featuring semi-spherical depressions linked by vertically incised lines on one side, and a deeper, square-shaped cavity on the other (figs.1 and 2). Continuing upward a roughly pear-shaped form exhibits a pronounced recession in its lower half above which, two shallow right-angled triangles have been carved (figs.3).
On top of this curved form is a rounded, disc-shaped protrusion, and a larger amorphous form that supports the upper section of the sculpture. The uppermost part of the sculpture has distinct sides: one features a rectangular relief with a round top edge that is adorned with a raised dome and half-moon shape (fig.4), while the other presents an arrangement of irregular bulbous forms (fig.5). These protrusions culminate in a conical projection with a domed impression at the apex.

Making the Upright Motives

Sources and development

Grouping the Upright Motives

The Henry Moore Gift

Alice Correia
March 2013

Notes

1
Henry Moore cited in John Hedgecoe (ed.), Henry Moore, London 1968, p.245.
2
Ann Garrould, Henry Moore. Volume 4: Complete Drawings 1950–76, London 2003, p.73.
3
Alan G. Wilkinson, Henry Moore Remembered: The Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, Toronto 1987, p.160.
4
Henry Moore cited in Gemma Levine, With Henry Moore: The Artist at Work, London 1978, p.123.
5
See Henry Moore at Perry Green, London 2011, p.17.
6
Henry Moore in ‘Henry Moore Talking to David Sylvester’, 7 June 1963, transcript of Third Programme, broadcast BBC Radio, 14 July 1963, Tate Archive TGA 200816, p.18. (An edited version of this interview was published in the Listener, 29 August 1963, pp.305–7.)
7
Henry Moore sales log book, Henry Moore Foundation Archive.
8
Julie Summers, ‘Fragment of Maquette for King and Queen’, in Claude Allemand-Cosneau, Manfred Fath and David Mitchinson (eds.), Henry Moore From the Inside Out: Plasters, Carvings and Drawings, Munich 1996, p.126.
9
Henry Moore sales log book, Henry Moore Foundation Archive.
10
G.W. Reid, letter to Henry Moore, 25 November 1960, Henry Moore Foundation Archive.
11
Moore in Hedgecoe 1968, p.248.
12
John Russell in Henry Moore, John Russell and A. M. Hammacher, Drie Staande Motieven, Otterlo 1965, unpaginated.
13
Ibid., figs.1–7.
14
Herbert Read, Henry Moore: A Study of his Life and Work, London 1965, p.206.
15
Henry Moore in Moore, Russell and Hammacher 1965, unpaginated.
16
Read 1965, p.206.
17
Andrew Causey, The Drawings of Henry Moore, London 2010, p.71.
18
See Sam Smiles, ‘Equivalents for the Megaliths: Prehistory and English Culture, 1920–50’, in David Peters Corbett, Ysanne Holt and Fiona Russell (eds.), The Geographies of Englishness: Landscape and the National Past 1880–1940, New Haven 2002, pp.199–223.
19
Henry Moore, letter to Paul Nash, 15 September 1933, Tate Archive TGA 8313/1/2/153.
20
Penelope Curtis and Fiona Russell, ‘Henry Moore and the Post-War British Landscape: Monuments Ancient and Modern’, in Jane Beckett and Fiona Russell (eds.), Henry Moore: Critical Essays, Aldershot 2003, p.138.
21
Moore’s niece, Ann Garrould, who catalogued Moore’s drawings, deciphered Moore’s hand written note as ‘New Ireland | stump’, while the art historian Christa Lichtenstern has read it as ‘New Ireland | string’. See Ann Garrould (ed.), Henry Moore. Volume 2: Complete Drawings 1930–39, London 1998, p.154, and Christa Lichtenstern, Henry Moore: Work-Theory-Impact, London 2008, p.205.
22
Garrould 1998, p.154.
23
Anon., ‘Acquisitions of Works of Art by Museums and Galleries: Supplement’, Burlington Magazine, vol.107, no.747, June 1965, p.338.
24
Read 1965, p.206.
25
David Nash, ‘Moore and Surrealism Reconsidered’, in Dorothy Kosinski (ed.),Henry Moore: Sculpting the 20th Century, exhibition catalogue, Dallas Museum ofArt, Dallas 2001, p.50. See also Michel Remy, Surrealism in Britain, Aldershot 1999.
26
See, for example, http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/10.210.7, accessed 18 February 2014.
27
Garrould 2003, p.89.
28
Ibid., p.92.
29
Mary Moore, ‘Catalogue’, in Gregor Muir (ed.), Henry Moore: Ideas for Sculpture, exhibition catalogue, Hauser & Wirth, London 2010, p.154.
30
Wilkinson 1987, p.155.
31
Henry Moore, ‘Sculpture in the Open Air: A Talk by Henry Moore on his Sculpture and its Placing in Open-Air Sites’, March 1955, transcript ed. by Robert Melville, Tate Artist Catalogue File, Henry Moore, A23941, reprinted in Philip James (ed.), Henry Moore on Sculpture, London 1966, p.97.
32
Peyton Skipwith, ‘Catalogue’, in Henry Moore and Michael Rosenauer, exhibition catalogue, Fine Art Society, London 1988, unpaginated.
33
Will Grohmann, The Art of Henry Moore, London 1960, p.197.
34
Anita Feldman Bennet, ‘Rediscovering Humanism’, in Henry Moore: In the Light of Greece, exhibition catalogue, Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation Museum of Contemporary Art, Andros 2000, p.69.
35
John Russell, Henry Moore, London 1968, p.151.
36
[Richard Calvocoressi], ‘T.2281, Three Motives Against Wall No.2’, The Tate Gallery 1978–80: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, London 1981, p.126.
37
Moore in Moore, Russell and Hammacher 1965, unpaginated.
38
Ibid.
39
Russell 1968, p.141.
40
Ibid., p.143.
41
Ibid., p.155.
42
Moore cited in Hedgecoe 1968, p.250.
43
Anon., ‘Acquisitions of Works of Art by Museums and Galleries: Supplement’, Burlington Magazine, vol.107, no.747, June 1965, p.338.
44
Margaret Garlake, New Art / New World: British Art in Postwar Society, New Haven and London 1998, p.191.
45
See ‘Note on the Henry Moore Gift’, 1978, Tate Public Records TG 4/6/10/4.
46
These figures are based on those listed in a memo in the records for the exhibition. See Tate Public Records TG 92/344/2.
47
Norman Reid, letter to Mary Danowski, 31 August 1978, Tate Public Records TG 4/6/10/4.
48
Ruth Rattenbury, letter to Mrs B. Tinsley, 25 July 1978, Tate Public Records TG 92/344/2.
49
Henry Moore, ‘Preface’, in Sculpture in Harlow, Harlow 1973, unpaginated.

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