Henry Moore
- Henry Moore
Moore designed ‘Mother and Child on Ladderback Rocking Chair’ as a toy for his daughter Mary who had been born six years prior. Moore wanted the sculpture to be engaging and entertaining for Mary, gently swaying back and forth when she played with it. The texture of the surface re-enforces the tactility and a desire to reach out and touch the work.
The theme of the mother and child is recurrent throughout Moore’s oeuvre and held particular poignancy in the years proceeding the Second World War. Moore took great delighted in being a father, with his role as parent giving new and complex insights into the relationship between mother and child. Moore’s wife Irina had a rocking chair in which she nursed Mary, which inspired a great number of Moore’s drawings and sculptures between 1947 and 1952, including the present. In ‘Mother and Child on Ladderback Rocking Chair’ the woman gently plays with the child on her knee, with one being able to imagine she is herself rocking the chair back and forth to amuse her child.
Provenance
The Leicester Galleries, LondonPrivate Collection, New York (acquired from the above on 19 January 1954)
Private Collection (acquired from above)
Literature
W. Grohmann, The Art of Henry Moore, London, 1960, p. 114, illus. of another cast
R. Melville, Henry Moore: Sculpture and Drawings,1921-1969, London, 1970, no. 431, p. 356, illus. of another cast
D. Mitchinson, Henry Moore: Sculpture, London, 1981, no. 431, p. 356, illus. of another cast
Henry Moore: 60 Years of His Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1983, pp. 81 and 123, illus. of another cast
A. Bowness, Henry Moore: Complete Sculpture, 1949-54, Vol. II, London, 1986, no. 313, p. 39, illus. of another cast
Henry Moore, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1988, no. 124, p. 231, another cast illus.
Hery Moore retrospective, Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, 2002, no. 115, pp. 144 and 248, illus. of another cast
Henry Moore, Tate Britain, London, 2010, no. 125, p. 186, illus. of another cast