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HENRY MOORE (1898-1986) Head, 1931 Cumberland alabaster Unique Signed 'Moore', on back of lower neck 15.2 x 13 x 9.6 cm (6 x 5 ⅛ x 3 ¾ in) (including the base) In the early 1930s, Shuzaburo Yasuda, the first owner of this work, studied sculpture at the Tokyo National College of Art. In 1936 he travelled to the United Kingdom where he visited Henry Moore's studio in Hampstead, forging a friendship that would last through the war. This work is recorded in the archives of the Henry Moore Foundation as Research Enquiry 2025.5 Provenance Shuzaburo Yasuda, Tokyo (acquired from artist, c.1936) Private Collection USA c.1990 Berkeley Square Gallery, London Private Collection UK (purchased from the above 2006) Literature A. Bowness, ed., Henry Moore, Complete Sculpture, London, 1988, vol. 6, p.24, no. 105a (illustrated) It was not until 1957 that Ede acquired his first work by Henry Moore: a small stone Head (1928) in exchange for a Gaudier-Brzeska drawing. 1 Ede placed it on a shelf near his bed. The material had particular resonance for him: A stone, however carved, is first and foremost a stone; it belongs to … the rock from which it is separated, and must retain this parental force and immobility, yet it must also convey that strange admixture which is man; mutability of flesh and eternity of spirit. In this small head the equilibrium of sculpture is reached, its life contained within its own nature; it is hard to think of it being made – it just is. 2 The second sculpture Ede acquired was monumental in impact if of a scale still compatible with the interior of Kettle's Yard. Visiting Moore's Arts Council exhibition in Cambridge in 1962, Ede selected three works, of which he was able to purchase Sculptural Object (1960). Ede relished the bronze sculpture's tactility and mysterious, bone-like form, describing it as possessing 'the wonder of a circle, the nave of a cathedral … the adventure of this side and the dynamic magnetism of the whole.' 3 Henry Moore, Head, 1928. © 2025 The Henry Moore Foundation. All Rights Reserved, DACS Images / www.henry-moore.org. Image: © Kettle's Yard. In 1968, Ede sought, and failed, to acquire a third sculpture. He had in mind a bronze cast of Moore's marble Three Rings (1966), for a site in front of the house, that he might be able to afford through the 'sale of Gaudier'. 4 Moore apologised that he was unable to help, firstly because he did not like making bronzes from sculptures conceived for stone, but secondly because he was committed to donating work to the new Henry Moore Sculpture Centre in Toronto. 1 Freeman, p.253. 2 Ede, A Way of Life, p.50. 3 Ede, A Way of Life, p.169. 4 Ede, letter to Henry Moore, 23 May 1968 (photocopy), Kettle's Yard Archive, KY/EDE/3/2/21. 62