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Label Text Like many Modernist artists, Moore rejected the aesthetic ideals of Classical and Renaissance sculpture, and instead found inspiration in African, Oceanic, and especially Pre-Columbian art. He also Hembraced the long tradition British landscape art, alluding to valleys, caves, and cliffs in many of his works, as well as the farmland that surrounded his studio. The reclining female figure was a recurrent subject for Moore, of which this work is an example. As an official War Artist during World War II, he became fascinated with the sleeping and resting Londoners, mostly women and children, taking shelter in the London Underground tunnels. Much of his later sculpture, including Seated Woman, would be inspired by these wartime sketches. Their success allowed Moore to work on a larger scale, and he was able to begin casting many of his works in bronze. He felt that the head was the most significant part of this sculpture. It “gives the rest a certain human poise and meaning, and it’s because I think the head is so important that I often reduce it in size to make the rest more monumental.”
Exhibition History"From Body to Being: Reflections on the Human Image," Des Moines Art Center, Feb. 1 - May 4, 1997

"Henry Moore," Marlborough Fine Art Ltd., London, July - Aug. 1963
Published ReferencesNATHAN EMORY COFFIN COLLECTION, a portfolio of fifty selection, published by the Des Moines Art Center to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of Nathan Emory Coffin, 1981, b/w ill.

Henry Seldis, HENRY MOORE IN AMERICA, New York, 1973, ref. p.203, ill. p.193 (another cast)

Nick Baldwin, DES MOINES SUNDAY REGISTER, Sept. 12, 1971, ill. p.B-3

John Hedgecoe, HENRY MOORE, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1968, ref. p.529, ill. p.358 (studio view), ill. p.359 (fragment), (another cast)

Alan Bowness, ed., HENRY MOORE: COMPLETE SCULPTURE 1955-64, Vol. 3, Lund Humphries and Zwemmer, London, 1965, ref. no.472, ill. pp.116-119 (another cast?)

DES MOINES SUNDAY REGISTER, Oct. 3, 1965, ill.

DES MOINES REGISTER, May, 1, 1964, ill.

ART QUARTERLY, XXVII, No. 2, 1964, ill. p.220

DES MOINES TRIBUNE, Apr. 29, 1964, ill.

HENRY MOORE, Marlborough Fine Art Ltd., July/Aug. 1963, exh. cat. no.118, ill. fig. no.12 (one color and two b/w views)

AN UNCOMMON VISION: THE DES MOINES ART CENTER, Des Moines Art Center, 1998, ref. pp.199 & 200, color ill. p.198

DMAC Bulletin, May 1964, cover ill.

DES MOINES ART CENTER: SELECTED PAINTINGS, SCULPTURES AND WORKS ON PAPER, Des Moines Art Center, 1985, ref. & b/w ill. p.159, pl.97
DimensionsOverall: 64 × 31 7/8 × 40 1/4 in. (162.6 × 81 × 102.2 cm)
Accession Number 1964.1
Classificationssculpture
CopyrightARS
InscriptionsMoore (anat. left lower area of upper thigh); 3/7 (below and to left of signature)
EditionNumber 3 of edition of 7 In HENRY MOORE - COMPLETE SCULPTURE 1955-64, by Alan Bowness (ed.) 1965 vol. 3, pub. by Lund Humphries and Zwemmer, London, other casts listed as belonging to: Mr. and Mrs. Max Wasserman, Chestnut Hill, Mass. Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, N.Y. Mrs. Aerol Arnold, Beverly Hills, Calif. Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle on Tyne, England Dr. A. Zaffaroni, Palo Alto, Calif. Gordon Bunshaft, New York
Provenance(Marlborough Fine Art Ltd., London); Des Moines Art Center [purchased from the previous, 1964]
Seated Woman (Thin Neck)
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Henry Moore
1964-1965
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Henry Moore
1951 (date also given as 1966)
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Henry Moore
1958
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
John Bradley Storrs
1920
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Alexander Archipenko
1916
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Marjorie Moore Miller
date unknown
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
b. Robert Moore
2023