Henry Moore: Sculptural Process and Public Identity

Purchased from the artist by the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1961; transferred to the Tate Gallery, 1983.

Three Motives Against a Wall No.1 1958 is a bronze sculpture consisting of three biomorphic forms each positioned on individual bases, which are all fixed with screws to a larger rectangular bronze base. Another bronze rectangle is attached at a perpendicular angle to the base and provides a backdrop to the three forms. The sculpture is coloured a vivid bright green with dark brown highlights and it rests on a plywood mount clad with copper sheet.

Moore originally made each of the elements of this sculpture in plaster and perhaps spent time positioning the biomorphic forms in different configurations before settling on the final arrangement. Moulds would then have been taken of each element and used to cast them in bronze. This sculpture was cast at the Art Bronze Foundry in London in an edition of twelve plus one artists copy.

The presence of investment in some crevices suggests that the three biomorphic forms and their individual bases were cast using the lost wax technique (fig.1), whereas the base and backdrop are more likely to have been sand cast, as is revealed by the slightly granular texture to the surface at the back (fig.2).1 It is likely that these two flat pieces are welded at the point where they meet. Looking closely at this sculpture it is possible to see how Moore carefully textured the surfaces. On the figures there are many thin striations made using a combination of fine saw blades, and fine lines that would have been incised into the original plaster model (fig.3). To create the raised wood grain texture on the backdrop it is likely that Moore simply pressed a wooden surface against a soft clay slab. The same method was probably used to create the deeply impressed square and rectangular marks in the same surface. Close examination reveals that there are also numerous stippled linear and dotted impressions on the vertical face and top edge of the backdrop, some of which may have been applied after casting by using small metal punch tools. The bronze base has an undulating surface where the high points have been abraded flat.

After casting the bronze was coloured by means of a process called artificial patination. This process involved applying chemical solutions that reacted with the bronze to produce various coloured compounds. The colour of this sculpture was achieved by first applying a dark brown layer using a chemical such as potassium polysulphide (often known as ‘liver of sulphur) and then a green patinating solution over the top. There are many different patina recipes used to produce green colours on bronzes but they often contain mixtures of copper and ammonium salts dissolved in water. The solution is usually applied in successive layers until the desired colour is achieved. The patinator lightly abraded the green patina on high points of the form to reveal the underlying brown colour before applying a clear wax to consolidate and protect the finished patina (fig.4). A patina has also been applied to the copper sheet on the mount which has resulted in a stippled green and black effect.

There is no artist’s inscription or foundry mark visible on this sculpture.

Three Motives Against a Wall No.1 comprises three individual amorphous forms positioned in a row on a stage-like platform set against an upright rectangular wall. The platform and rear wall are joined together to create a right-angled unit, which is mounted onto a copper-covered wooden base. The wall is textured with a wood-grain effect and is imprinted with an arrangement of square and rectangular depressions. Although none of the three forms or motives depicts a realistic human figure, each one is reminiscent of a human body and has an identifiable head supported by a torso. They are positioned on individual plinths of differing shapes and sizes and can be identified from left to right as a seated figure, a reclining figure and a standing figure.

The seated figure on the left (fig.1) has a bulbous head and a long neck. A ridge runs down the length of the long tubular body from the neck to the waist while two curved shoulders lead down to arms. The right arm has been cut just below the shoulder, leaving just a stump, but the left arm extends backwards before curving down and around to the waist. The hips are wide and the buttocks sit on a textured cuboid plinth. Individual legs have not been distinguished, although a depression has been made in the figure’s lap that accentuates the rise of the right knee and gives the impression that the left knee is tucked underneath the right. The lower half of the figure thins to a single conical point at its base. Overall the curve of the body and legs gives the impression that the figure is leaning backwards and slouching.

The central motive (fig.2) is the least naturalistic of the three figures and may be understood as a reclining figure in that the whole body is angled on a table-like plinth. Made up of sweeping forms, the body consists of a roughly modelled head attached to a long thrusting neck and shoulders that merge into an undulating protrusion that pushes out from the torso and might represent breasts. There are no discernable arms and the single form that takes the place of the legs arches upwards before thinning and curving back down towards the plinth. From the raised knee two spurs project outwards like fronds. Beneath this curved knee is an arched space through which the rear wall can be seen.

The motive on the right (fig.3) is positioned on a shallow square plinth and features a smooth oval shape on its front that loosely resembles a shield. Seen from the side, the body is angled so that the short legs extend backwards towards the rear wall while the torso and head lean towards the front. The figure stands on a single triangular foot and its leg takes the form of a prism. Behind the shield-like front is a network of holes and hollows that separate the torso and legs into curved, tubular, interconnected forms. The head is turned over the right shoulder as though the figure is looking towards its counterparts and is incised with two widely spaced nostrils. This is the tallest of the three motives and appears to represent a standing figure.

Although the three motives are evenly spaced on the base and positioned in a single row, when seen from the side they appear to fan out from the rear of the platform to the front: the left motive leans backwards, the middle motive is upright and the right motive leans forward, creating a sense of movement that encourages a consideration of the relationships between each of the elements.

Unlike the rear wall, with its wood-grain texture and square and rectangular indentations, the three motives have generally smooth surfaces, especially the standing figure on the right. However, crevices and pock marks can be seen on the middle motive, which has also been incised with a series of individually incised parallel lines.

In order to make the motives in bronze Moore would have first made each element in plaster (fig.4), building up the form in layers until it could be modelled and shaped using spatulas and metal modelling tools. It is likely that Moore carved hollows through the plaster in order to create the forms of the standing motive (fig.5). It is not known exactly how Moore made the rear wall in bronze, but according to former Tate curator Judith Collins he either cast a plaster version that had been imprinted with a piece of wood and into which he carved out the rectangular and square recesses, or he ‘cut the recesses into a plank of wood and then had this cast into bronze without a plaster intermediate stage’.1

It is probable that Moore made the plaster motives in his small maquette studio in the grounds of his home, Hoglands, at Perry Green in Hertfordshire. The studio was lined with shelves on which his collection of bones, shells, and pebbles – what he called his ‘library of natural forms’ – was stored.2 It is known that Moore often borrowed shapes from these organic objects when making his sculptures and it is probable that the curvilinear forms of the motives originated from his study of bones and stones. When they were completed Moore sent the plaster maquettes to a professional foundry to be cast. The log book in which Moore recorded when and where an edition was cast reveals that Three Motives Against a Wall No.1 was cast at the Art Bronze Foundry in London, run by Charles Gaskin. It is likely that Moore first came into contact with the foundry when he was Head of the Sculpture Department at Chelsea College of Art in the 1930s because it was located close to the college and was used regularly by staff and students. The sculpture exists in an edition of twelve bronzes plus one artist’s copy, and which were cast between March 1959 and July 1960. Tate’s copy, which was number six in the edition, was made in August 1959.3

At the foundry the technicians would have used the original plaster motives to create hollow moulds into which molten bronze could be poured, and from which multiple bronze versions could be made. Investment in the crevices of the middle motive suggests that it (and the other motives) were probably cast using the lost wax method (fig.6). The base and the backdrop were probably cast using the sand casting method because the grainy texture on the back of the rear wall is typical of this casting method (fig.7).

After casting Moore would have inspected the quality of the bronze and made decisions about the patination. A patina is the surface colour of a sculpture and is usually achieved by applying chemical solutions to the pre-heated bronze sculpture. Tate’s copy of Three Motives Against a Wall No.1 has been treated with a vivid sea-green colour but in certain areas the patina on the sculpture has been rubbed back or worn down, revealing the darker brown colour beneath. This is most evident on the rear wall on which darker areas resemble permanent shadows, as though cast by the motives (fig.8). After patination, Moore explained, ‘you can then work on the bronze, work on the surface and let the bronze come through again, after you’ve made certain patinas. You rub it and wear it down as your hand might by a lot of handling. From this point of view bronze is the most responsive and unbelievably varied material’.4

According to the curator Anita Feldman Bennet, between 1955 and 1960 ‘Moore created thirty-four sculptures experimenting with positioning figures on steps, seated on platforms, benches, ledges or against walls’.5 Critics and scholars agree that these works positioning figures within or against architectural features were a direct result of Moore’s commission to create a large-scale sculpture for the new Unesco headquarters in Paris in May 1955 (fig.9).6 Moore had made works for urban environments in the past but a statement made in 1951 reveals how he felt about the relationship between art and architecture: ‘I would rather have a piece of sculpture put in a landscape, almost any landscape, than in, or on the most beautiful building I know’.7 With the Unesco commission, then, Moore faced the challenge of creating a sculpture that could be integrated into an architectural setting in a way that did not diminish the artwork’s formal qualities. As the critic Herbert Read explained in his introduction to a volume of Moore’s catalogue raisonné written in 1965:

In 1988 Judith Collins noted that ‘the wall theme begins to appear as a curved concave form behind single seated female figures’ in works such as Maquette for Seated Figure Against Curved Wall 1955 (fig.10).9 In this work the top of the wall is not level, which perhaps indicates that Moore was attempting to replicate different architectural features rather than present his work against a smooth even background. Sculptures featuring a curved wall are followed in the catalogue raisonné by sculptures featuring a flat wall. In sculptures such as Maquette for Girl Seated Against Square Wall 1957 a bony and wiry nude female is seated on a tall cuboid bench.10 Although she is seated sideways, her head and body twist towards the front. The rear wall is marked with small rectangular depressions of different heights, which when seen from the front, frame the figure’s head. These indentations might be regarded as windows and as such demonstrate Moore’s concern with the ways in which sculpture and architecture might respond to each other. Although the idea of constructing a wall around the Unesco sculpture was abandoned, as Read noted it ‘was to prove a fertile invention for the future’ and informs Three Motives Against a Wall No.1 and its counterpart Three Motives against Wall No.2 1959 (Tate T02281).11

Moore’s decision to imprint wood grain on the upright wall of Three Motives Against a Wall No.1 may be linked to the automatist techniques of frottage and grattage exemplified by surrealist works such as Max Ernst’s Forest and Dove 1927 (Tate T00548). Frottage is the French word for rubbing and refers to the way textured surfaces are transcribed by laying sheets of paper on top of an object, which are then rubbed over with a soft pencil. Grattage, by contrast, involves scraping off layers of paint to reveal textures below. For Ernst, these techniques provided a way of incorporating chance procedures in the making of a work that yielded unexpected forms and compositions, and it may be that Moore utilised a similar technique to create the wood-grain effect, albeit in a conscious, controlled way.

During the 1930s Moore was closely linked with surrealism: his friends Herbert Read and the artist Roland Penrose were at the centre of the surrealist movement in England, and he exhibited in a number of surrealist exhibitions in London during the decade. Furthermore, according to the critic Robert Melville, although Moore ‘took no part in the doctrinal discussions’ of the surrealists, ‘during the period from 1931 to the beginning of the war, Moore carved a superb series of organic abstractions’ that he argued ‘reveal his connections with Surrealism. He belongs to the Surrealist generation’.12 Four Forms 1936 (fig.11), for example, comprises four individual amorphous organic and geometric constructed components arranged in a row on a rectangular base. The arrangement of strange and seemingly unrelated abstract forms in a row also became the subject of a series drawings made around the same time that, importantly, also feature background walls marked by rectangular recesses, and thus relate closely to Three Motives Against a Wall No.1.

The curator Alan Wilkinson has noted that although Moore did not incorporate imprinted walls in his sculptures until the late 1950s, the ‘rectangular slotted walls first appear in the drawings as early as 1936 as a background for sculptural ideas. In some of the drawings diagonal walls lead into the picture space and with the background wall create a claustrophobic, cell-like setting, as in Ideas for Sculpture in a Setting of 1938’ (fig.12).13 The enclosed character of the spaces depicted in Moore’s drawings of the 1930s had previously been commented upon by the psychologist Erich Neumann in his book, The Archetypal World of Henry Moore, published in 1959. Neumann suggested that:

Neumann went on to discuss Moore’s uncanny architectural spaces in relation to the work of the Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978), whose work was admired by surrealist artists including René Magritte and Paul Nash. De Chirico’s paintings frequently depict enigmatic town squares, shadowy architectural facades and claustrophobic urban environments that create a tense and menacing atmosphere.

The shapes of the three motives in Three Motives Against a Wall No.1 also relate closely to Moore’s work of the 1930s, and in particular to his drawings of organic materials such as pebbles, shells and bones that he transformed into evocations of human figures. In Seven Ideas for Sculpture 1931 (fig.14), for example, the study in the top-centre depicts an upright hollowed-out bone that closely resembles a head, shoulders and torso, and which is somewhat reminiscent of the right-hand standing motive in Three Motives Against a Wall No.1. As the critic David Sylvester noted in 1968, Moore was attracted to organic forms ‘because of their potential for evoking things other than themselves, so that shapes derived from them could have a mysterious ambiguity’.15

During the 1940s Moore’s sculptural production came to a near-standstill due to a lack of available materials brought about by the Second World War. Instead, Moore produced numerous drawings, recording his ideas for sculpture. Standing Figures and Ideas for Sculptures 1948 (fig.15) presents an arrangement of seven designs for sculptures, including in the upper right, a sketch for a standing figure that anticipates the right-hand motive of Three Motives Against a Wall No.1. This one-legged figure, which appears to hold a pierced shield in front of its torso, reappears in a lithographic print of 1949 titled Sculptural Objects (fig.16), which presents an array of standing forms alongside a cage-like sphere and a self-supporting ladder, set within an undefined landscape. The standing figure in the middle distance on the far right of the print has a striking resemblance to the sculptural motive on the right of the sculpture, with an elliptical shield protecting a hollowed torso, standing upright on a single leg.

By the time Moore created Three Motives Against a Wall No.1 in 1958 he rarely, if ever, produced preparatory sketches for sculptures, preferring instead to make small hand-held, three-dimensional models in a malleable material such as clay, plaster or wax. When asked in 1960 how he arrived at an idea for sculpture, Moore replied:

A particular flint stone in Moore’s collection – known from photographs taken when it was exhibited at Marlborough Fine Art, London, in 1971 (fig.17) – may have inspired the form of the middle motive in Three Motives Against a Wall No.1, to which Moore added a horizontal section denoting legs, thus transforming the stone into a semi-figurative object. In 1959 this motive was cast as a distinct sculpture and given the title Animal Form (fig.18). In his book examining Moore’s depiction of animals the writer W.J. Strachan placed Animal Form alongside other works inspired by bones and noted that bones are ‘always an underlying element in Moore’s sculpture’.17 The transformation of these shapes into evocations of human figures and animal forms imbue them with an uncanny quality, in that they seem familiar and yet not of this world. Despite their strangeness, however, Neumann argued that ‘they are certainly no more improbable than an elephant would be for a man who had never seen one, and the fact that they deviate from the human shape in certain particulars but resemble it in others is a feature they have in common with a number of other creatures that actually exist’.18

The art historian Julian Stallabrass has also noted that the middle motive (and therefore Animal Form) is closely related to Moore’s large-scale sculpture Reclining Figure 1963–5 for the Lincoln Center in New York (fig.19).19 The motive and this later work share a similar overall form, with a leaning upright section denoting the torso, and an arched section denoting the legs. However, the later work shows how Moore further developed the figure by dividing it into two separate sections.

In a letter to Moore dated 9 August 1960, Carol Hogben, Assistant Keeper in the Department of Circulation at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), thanked Moore for offering to lend a copy of Three Motives Against a Wall No.1 to a travelling exhibition she was organising, and noted that she had relayed to the museum’s director ‘that you had mentioned in conversation that this might be available to the Museum in the coming financial year at a very special price of between £600 and £700’.20 Hogben continued:

On 16 August 1960 Moore replied to Hogben saying, ‘I am pleased to read all you say ... and it is perfectly alright to leave open your acquiring the Three Motives Against Wall until after the beginning of your financial year’.22 The sculpture was delivered to the V&A in September 1960, and in May 1961 Hogben wrote to Moore asking whether his offer to sell the sculpture to the gallery at a favourable price was still open, adding, ‘form my own part, I cannot imagine any bill which it would give us greater pleasure to settle!’.23 Moore replied on 5 June offering the sculpture at the price of £650 before adding:

The sculpture was acquired in June 1961 for £650, and on entering the V&A it was placed in the Department of Circulation. The department’s remit was to organise exhibitions of works from the collection at art schools and regional galleries so that students from around the country could view exemplary works of art without having to travel to London. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s an exhibition titled Henry Moore Sculpture and Drawings was available to art schools although this exhibition was made up of photographic enlargements. It is possible that Three Motives Against a Wall No.1 was included in the exhibitions Twentieth-Century Sculpture between 1960 and 1963 and Modern Sculpture and Sculptors Drawings available between 1967 and 1972.25

In 1983 Three Motives Against a Wall No.1 was one of seventy twentieth-century sculptures transferred from the V&A to the Tate Gallery. The transfer was made in order to rationalise the collections of both institutions, and was reciprocated by the Tate, which transferred to the V&A six of the earliest sculptures in its collection. The V&A identification number ‘CIRC.234–61’ is still visible on the rear of the sculpture (fig.20).

Other casts of this work may be found in the collections of the Henry Moore Foundation and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. A cast owned by the Art Institute of Chicago was de-accessioned and sold at Christie’s, New York, on 7 November 2007.26 Other examples are believed to be held in private collections.