LONDON.- Osborne Samuel announces their participation at TEFAF Maastricht from 14 - 23 March 2014 and will present two outstanding works by Henry Moore, amongst a collection of bronzes and significant drawings.

Widely regarded as the greatest of Henry Moore’s vast graphic output, the Italianate Shelter series was based on Moore’s observation of sleeping families seeking refuge from the Blitz in the London Underground. Dark, evocative and intimately observed, the series explores Madonna and Child and Family Group themes that defined Moore’s career and the postwar climate of social reconstruction.

Three Female Figures is a standout work within this documentary yet imaginative line and wash series. Selected as the basis for one of Moore’s earliest lithographs to be published by Cowell of Ipswich, the work bears many traces of Moore’s sculpting background through its close segmented sections, undulating lines, shading and highlighting.

Dating from 1949, Three Female Figures was produced at a significant moment in Moore’s career. Alongside a major show at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1946, Moore was awarded the Grand Prize for Sculpture at the first postwar Venice Biennale in 1948.

From 1968-70, Moore was involved in designing sculptures intended for sitting on a hill top, including Upright Motives, Sheep Piece, Hill Arches and Spindle Piece, the latter cast in a large 11 foot version, and the smaller present variation.

Acclaimed art historian and former Director of the Tate Gallery, Sir Alan Bowness CBE, once reflected on the “pointing, beacon-like quality” of Moore’s Spindle Piece.

Spindle Piece is largely inspired by Moore’s fascination with the work of Michelangelo. Through a Royal Academy Scholarship in 1925, Moore travelled to Italy where he saw Michelangelo’s depiction of God creating Man at the Sistine Chapel for the first time. Speaking of the theme, and the Spindle series, Moore commented: “Sculpturally, it’s two points just about to meet. This work is on the same theme, only the two fingers are going out, not in”.