The reclining figure is the most enduring of Henry Moore’s subjects, with the artist returning to it continually throughout his career. The form allowed for Moore to bring his admiration of pre-Columbian and Cycladic forms into his work and more widely into the lexicon of avant-garde European art..

The present ‘Reclining Figure’ from 1945 is an outstanding example of Moore’s unique merging of Surrealism and Abstraction. Having spent time in Paris in 1930 Moore became immersed in the French avant-garde, becoming friends the sculptors Brancusi and Giacometti, and the Surrealist artists Jean Arp and Joan Miró. Within Surrealism Moore found a means of addressing the body with an entirely different approach, by which form was not fixed and space could be manipulated. Of particular interest was the surrealist application of biomorphic forms in which shapes within an artwork reference nature.

Negative space was an important component of Moore’s practice, with the artist once speaking of how “a hole can itself have as much shape-meaning as a solid mass”. The application of negative space in ‘Reclining Figure’ creates intrigue and dynamism through the play between the form of body and the spaces it carves out. This is particularly prevalent in the bent extended leg – a position Moore often uses – which allows for a different window through which to see the body.

Moore’s reclining figures from 1945 are in a number of public collections including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Hirshorn Museum, The Isreal Museum, and Dixon Gallery. Another cast of this sculpture is in the collection of Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, USA, while a highly polished bronze version was once owned by Nelson Rockefeller.