Working Model for UNESCO Reclining Figure

In the 1950s, Henry Moore executed a number of important public commissions, including Reclining Figure for the headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization in Paris. The Art Institute’s sculpture is one of six smaller bronze versions of the unique, over-16-foot-long marble figure that Moore installed at UNESCO in 1958. The artist looked to many cultures—particularly to enduring examples of art from ancient Greece and the Yucatán region of Mexico—to give his figural works their monumental forms and profound resonance with the art of the past. This reclining figure connects not only to history but also to the earth—its swelling masses and rounded voids suggest the female form as well as a landscape of valleys, mountains, and caves.