Seated Figures Studies for Sculpture

Henry Moore is best known as a sculptor, but he also produced a large quantity of graphic work. As a sculpture student at the Royal Academy of Art, Moore spent much of his time engaged in life-drawing rather than working on sculpture.

In this lithograph, Moore delineates each figure with a few deft strokes, retaining a sense of urgency and spontaneity in contrast to the more considered and laborious process of carving and casting sculpture.

“I find that carrying a drawing so far that it becomes a substitute for the sculpture either weakens the desire to do the sculpture, or is likely to make the sculpture only a dead realisation of the drawing. I now leave a wider latitude in the interpretation of the drawings I make for sculpture, and draw often in line and flat tones without the light and shade and illusion of three dimensions; but this does not mean that the vision behind the drawing is only two-dimensional.”