Reclining Figure: Festival
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| Reclining Figure: Festival | |
|---|---|
 Sculpture in the grounds of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art | |
| Artist | Henry Moore |
| Year | 1951 |
| Catalogue | LH 293 |
| Type | Bronze |
| Dimensions | 228 cm (90 in) |
| Location | Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art |
Reclining Figure: Festival (LH 293)[1] is a bronze sculpture by English artist Henry Moore, commissioned by the Arts Council in 1949 for the Festival of Britain in 1951. The sculpture can be viewed as an abstraction of a reclining female human figure, resting on two arms, with a small head.
By 1949, Moore was already recognised as Britain's greatest living sculptor, having won the prize for sculpture at the Venice Biennale in 1948. The Arts Council suggested that a family group would be appropriate for its commission, based on the festival theme of "discovery", but Moore decided to create a reclining female form instead. The Tate Gallery organised a retrospective of Moore's works in 1951, to run alongside the festival on the South Bank. John Read produced a television documentary for the BBC about Moore which included the making of the sculpture, from the initial sketches to the casting of the full-size bronze.[2]
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For this sculpture, Moore used a new working method that he would continue to use for his later works, starting with initial sketches before making plaster maquettes, then creating a small bronze working model which would be enlarged to create the full-size final cast. Moore made his sketches and maquettes in 1950 (LH 292a, b and LH 292). A key plaster model measuring 105.5 × 227 × 89 centimetres (41.5 × 89.4 × 35.0 in) was donated to the Tate Gallery in 1978. Strings stuck to the surface create lines that draw the viewer's eye over the sculpture.[3]
A working model was cast in bronze in 1950, in an edition of seven (plus one artist's model). One example sold at Christie's in 2008 for £553,250.[4]
