British sculptor Henry Moore stated that his aim as a sculptor was to "understand and realize more completely what form and shape are about, and to react to form in life, in the human figure, and in past sculpture." He was especially interested in the theme of mother and child-a traditional image that allowed him to address birth, nurturing, and creativity. He tackled this theme hundreds of times, in both drawings and sculptures. Often, he rendered women in forms taken from nature, suggesting a link between woman and earth as fertile sources of life.
In a small tabletop bronze of 1956 depicting a seated mother and child,
the fluid drapery of the woman's dress suggests a waterfall or a
seashell. She holds her child at a distance, reticent rather than
encompassing. In contrast, the female figure in the Garden's Reclining
Mother and Child, completed in 1961, seems to be a part of the earth;
the woman's rounded, hollowed forms resemble hills or rocks. She gently
cradles her child, who seems to have emerged from her large cavelike or
womblike aperture. Standing Figure: Knife Edge (1961), also in the
Garden, further demonstrates Moore's interest in natural forms. He was
intrigued by the shapes of bones and fossils; this sculpture is based
on the breastbone of a chicken. Its flattened, arching "wings" also
suggest flight and link the figure-probably female-to images of ancient
Greek winged goddesses.
Reclining Mother and Child 1960-1961
bronze
Collection Walker Art
Center, Minneapolis
Gift of the T. B. Walker
Foundation, 1963