- Museum number
- 1969,0315.26
- Description
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Three studies for a reclining figure, formerly in a sketch-book, for the sculpture for the UNESCO building in Paris; abstract forms. 1957
Black chalk, touched with grey ink
- Production date
- 1957
- Dimensions
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Height: 288 millimetres
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Width: 238 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- Attached to reverse of mount is a British Council exhibition label
From sketchbook 1969,0315.25-28
Illustrated in 'Towards Post-Modernism.design since 1851', by Michael Collins, revised edition, London, British Museum, 1994, fig. 96.
Label text from 2008-9 Sept.-Jan BM, British Sculptors' Drawings
This and 1969,0315.25 and 1969,0315.27 drawings are pages from a single sketchbook that Moore used while working on his commission in 1957 from UNESCO to make a large sculpture for its building in Paris. Unlike some of the other drawings by Moore in this display that are finished compositions, they show the process of imaginative creation as he tries out different ways of constructing the figure.
Label text from 2016-18, Sep-Jan touring exhibition, 'Lines of Thought'
This sheet is from a sketchbook full of ideas for a monumental sculpture for the newly built UNESCO headquarters in Paris (fig. 27). Moore tried out and rejected many different maquettes (small-scale sculptural models) for this prestigious commission. Although the figure at the bottom of the sheet bears the closest resemblance to the sculpture, there are still many divergences, including an extra hole in the torso and between the draped legs. Moore gives the figures a sculptural threedimensionality by using shading and his idiosyncratic 'sectional line', which traverses an object's surface like a contour line, often in a perpendicular or zigzag manner.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
2008-9 Sept.-Jan BM, British Sculptors' Drawings, no cat.
2016 3 Sep - 6 Nov, Poole Museum, 'Lines of thought: Drawing from Michelangelo to now', no. 24
2017 1 Jan - 25 Feb, The Brynmor Jones Library Art Gallery, University of Hull, 'Lines of thought: Drawing from Michelangelo to now', no. 24
2017 12 Mar - 5 May, Ulster Museum, Belfast, 'Lines of thought: Drawing from Michelangelo to now', no. 24
2017 May - Sep, New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, 'Lines of thought: Drawing from Michelangelo to now', no. 24
2017-2018 Oct - Jan, RISD Museum, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, 'Lines of thought: Drawing from Michelangelo to now', no. 24
- Acquisition date
- 1969
- Acquisition notes
- Part of a group acquired together: for comment see 1969,0315.18
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1969,0315.26