Skip to main content

Family Group: M.409-1985

Object information

Current Location: Gallery 27 (Glaisher)

Titles

Family Group

Maker(s)

Sculptor: Moore, Henry Spencer

Entities

Categories

Description

Bronze. A mother and father seated, with one child standing between the father's knees and another smaller child sitting on the mother's lap. The father places his right hand on the mother's left shoulder and his right hand on the standing child's left shoulder.

Legal notes

Bequeathed by Miss Diana E.M. Hunter

Measurements and weight

Height: 17.8 cm
Width: 13.2 cm

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1985) by Hunter, Miss D. E. M.

Dating

20th Century, Mid
1940s
George VI
Production date: AD 1944

Note

Henry Moore was one of the most important English sculptors of the twentieth century. As a student in Leeds and London, he admired the solidity and power of pre-classical and non-European sculpture, and from the outset of his career in the mid-1920s, he abandoned the representational idiom which had characterized European sculpture since the Renaissance. In the 1930s, Moore’s work was influenced by both Abstraction and Surrealism, but the human form, remained central to his work, especially the reclining female figure, and the mother and child.

In 1944 and 1945 Moore made a series of drawings, and terracotta sketch models of family groups of a mother and father with one or two children. These were initiated by a commission from Henry Morris, Director of Education for Cambridgeshire, for a large bronze for Impington village college, designed by Walter Gropius and his partner Maxwell Fry. This project was never realised, but several of the small sketch models were cast in bronze, including this example.

One of an edition of seven.

People, subjects and objects depicted

Project

  • Sculpture UK

Materials used in production

Bronze

Techniques used in production

Casting (process) : Bronze, cast

Inscription or legends present

  • Text: MOORE
  • Type: Signature

References and bibliographic entries

Related exhibitions

Identification numbers

Accession number: M.409-1985
Primary reference Number: 13445
External ID: CAM_CCF_M_409_1985
Stable URI

Audit data

Created: Saturday 6 August 2011 Updated: Monday 18 December 2023 Last processed: Monday 18 December 2023

Associated departments & institutions

Owner or interested party: The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department: Applied Arts

Citation for print

This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:

The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024) "Family Group" Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/13445 Accessed: 2024-11-21 21:05:57

Citation for Wikipedia

To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:

{{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/13445 |title=Family Group |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-11-21 21:05:57|publisher=The University of Cambridge}}

API call for this record

To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:

https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/api/v1/objects/object-13445

Sign up for updates

Updates about future exhibitions and displays, family activities, virtual events & news. You'll be the first to know...