Watercolor, charcoal and color pastels on cream wove paper, 1935. 390x562 mm; 15 3/8x22 1/4 inches. Signed and dated in ink, lower right recto. Ex-collection M. Knoedler & Co., New York; American Masters Gallery, Los Angeles, with the original labels.
Among the most important British schulptors of the 20th century, Moore (1898-1986) is best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. He studied during the early 1920s at the Leeds School of Art and also the Royal College of Art, London, where he extended his knowledge of primitive art and sculpture, studying the ethnographic collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum. Moore taught at the Royal College of Art and the Chelsea School of Art during the late 1920s/1930s.
During this pivotal decade, Moore and other members of an avant-garde artistic group known as The Seven and Five Society, would develop steadily more abstract work, influenced by their frequent trips to Paris and their contact with leading progressive artists, notably Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Jean Arp and Alberto Giacometti. By the mid-1930s, Moore also flirted with Surrealism; both he and fellow artist Paul Nash were on the organising committee of the International Surrealist Exhibition, which took place in London in 1936.
