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large sculpture for a building in Singapore. Moore
enlarged the maquette to monumental size and
had two bronze casts made, one for Singapore
and the other for the Henry Moore Foundation.
He also commissioned a third cast in fibreglass,
easier to transport and possible to show in
exhibitions around the world.
Large Reclining Figure is one of the best known and
most iconic examples of Moore's fascination with
the reclining female figure, which he considered
his main sculptural theme. It is animated by a
tension between organic and abstracted forms
typical of Moore's surrealist work of the 1930s.
Its vitality derives primarily from a focus on the
structural properties of the figure's bones and
joints, which convey a sense of 'pressure from
beneath the surface'.
I.M. Pei especially enjoyed the open forms
of Large Reclining Figure and their balanced
combination of negative space and positive
volumes, which create a fascinating and complex
dialogue between the figure and the pared-down
forms of his architecture.
