HENRY MOORE (1898-1986) Tree Figure

Signed and numbered ‘Moore 2/9’ (on the base) Bronze with a brown patina on a stone base H: 18 cm (without base) Provenance: Private collection, Canada Private collection, United Kingdom Literature: Alan Bowness (ed.), Henry Moore, complete Sculpture, Volume 5, Lund Humphries, London, 1988, cat.no.771 (illustrated in black and white, another cast). John Hedgecoe, A Monumental Vision, The Sculpture of Henry Moore, Collins & Brown, London, 1998, pp.242-243, cat.no.651 (illustrated in colour, another cast). Certainly one of the most admired post-war British artists, Henry Moore is famous for his biomorphic forms. Whilst his most famous sculptures tend to focus on the female form, particularly reclining women, or the subject of mother and child, Moore’s love of nature, particularly the English landscapes that he grew up with in Yorkshire, and later in Hertfordshire, is well known. This can be seen in much of his oeuvre, and speaking in 1979 of his interest in trees, Moore said the following: Moore was frequently inspired by the forms and textures of natural objects, such as rocks and pebbles, as well as by landscapes and trees. Additionally, in the later part of his career Moore made many drawings and etchings of trees, and he was particularly interested in the trunks of trees, in their shapes and in their rootedness. The influence of nature can certainly be felt in many of Moore’s abstract figurative works, but in Tree Figure we see this relationship from a different perspective, in the way that the curves and lines of the tree trunk almost take on a human form.