Henry Moore Works in Public
This is a guide to Moore's sculptures on public display throughout the world. We strive to ensure that all information is accurate, however we recommend that you contact each venue before making a visit. Please also contact us if you spot any mistakes. In some instances it has not been possible to source an image of the actual sculpture in-situ, and on such occasions an alternative image has been used.
Singapore
Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation Headquarters
bronze
length 900cm
photo: Umm Aisyah
The reclining figure was a perennial motif for Moore and one that appears most memorably in this semi-abstract form of 1938. The original was a lead cast made by the artist and his assistant Bernard Meadows during experiments at Burcroft, the Moores’ rural hideout in Kent. At an early stage the work was astutely purchased by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, but it was not until 1983, when the architect I.M. Pei was in need of a suitable sculptural foil to set off his Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation in Singapore, that this particular figure rose to prominence. Pei commissioned a gigantic enlargement over ten metres in length which was initially executed in fibreglass, with a unique bronze to follow; this bronze version of the original tiny figure was editioned at the same time in a series of casts made by the Royal College of Art. Moore, meanwhile, realised that the huge enlargement was exactly what he had been seeking for the top of a small hill left by quarry workings at the periphery of his land at Perry Green
Catalogue entry by Michael Phipps in Six Leading Sculptors and the Human Figure, National Gallery, Cultural Olympiad, Athens 2004, p.431