Reclining Figure, Bronze sculpture at Lincoln Center, New York, United States.
This bronze sculpture displays abstract forms with curved surfaces and hollow spaces that interpret the human body through modernist expression. The work weighs several tons and was designed to be viewed from many sides from its location at the North Plaza.
Henry Moore received the commission in December 1961, funded by a $225,000 fee donated by Albert and Vera List after architect Gordon Bunshaft proposed him. The full-scale plaster model was finished in August 1964, cast in bronze at Berlin's Hermann Noack foundry, shipped on MS Finnclipper and installed on 21 September 1965. It was removed in 2007 for the North Plaza reconfiguration and reinstalled in 2009 in the pool named Paul Milstein Pool in 2011.
Moore based the work on earlier drawings and maquettes rather than the site, working on the idea of a woman and a rock rising from the water. The two bronze elements are set in the Paul Milstein Pool, named in 2011, so the reflection Moore wanted is part of the viewing.
The work sits on the North Plaza of Lincoln Center and is easily reached from the Metropolitan Opera House side. Visitors can freely walk around it at any time, allowing different viewing angles and changing light effects throughout the day.
Moore based the work on a flint stone and first modelled it in clay or plaster maquettes in 1962; the full-size plaster was cut into pieces, cast in bronze at the Hermann Noack foundry in Berlin and welded back together. It travelled to New York on the MS Finnclipper and was installed on 21 September 1965.
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