For as long as I’ve been using Leeds Central Library, located next to the art gallery, it’s been part of the landscape. Since 1982, Henry Moore’s Reclining Woman: Elbow has dominated the public gathering place that has hosted all sorts of civic comings and goings over the years. On breaks from the laptop on warmer days, this square is where I eat lunch and people watch. It’s also where—just a few days before they removed the statue—I was a feet away Jeremy Corbin, listening to him speak at a demo on the Headrow.

On the 15^th January the statue was gone: dismantled from its stone plinth at the top of the gallery steps, packed into a crate by crane and carted off on a lorry without prior public notice. Though I didn’t realise at the time, the disappearance is only temporary. Apparently, Moore’s iconic sculptures occasionally go on trips overseas, usually on loans to galleries and museums in various cities around the world. Last year I even managed to stumble across another one in Buenos Aires’ National Museum of Fine Art. I‘ve since learned that the latest destination isn’t quite so far away.

A YORKSHIRE LAD

The county, God’s County they’ll tell you, is Moore’s spiritual homeland. He was born and bred in Castleford and studied at Leeds School of Art in the 1920s. He cited the Yorkshire landscape as a major influence. Fitting too that Yorkshire Sculpture Park holds some of his most important pieces, though even these are sometimes rotated or loaned out by the Henry Moore Foundation.

So, the Reclining Woman: Elbow. The bronze sculpture was conceived and cast in 1981, when Moore was 83 years old. It was to be one of his final sculptures, reflecting a lifetime of artistic fixation with the three basic human poses: standing, sitting and lying (Moore admitted his preference for a reclining woman was a practical one as it was structurally more stable). Value? This particular one is on loan and has never been sold, though another version of the same titled piece went for over $13.8m last year. Another relative, Reclining Figure: Festival, sold for $33.1m at Christies in London in 2016.

Thieves have shown an interest too. In 2005, one piece from the Reclining Figure series was stolen from the grounds of the Henry Moore Foundation estate in Hertfordshire. It was assumed to have been melted down and exported to China for use in electrical components. His Sundial sculpture was also stolen from his former home. Apparently unaware of its intrinsic value or monetary value (£500,000), the thieves sold it on to a scrap metal dealer for £46.

‘Reclining Figure: External Form’ at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes

(image copyright: EM Windle)

WORLD RECOGNITION

It should be said Moore’s work hasn’t always been everyone’s cup of tea. Early critics described his abstract sculptures as monstrosities. The public felt otherwise of course. Commissions came in from UNESCO HQ in Paris and the Lincoln Center in New York, with both parties interested in his reclining statues. He scooped the International Sculpture Prize at the Venice Biennale in 1948 and at the Sâo Paulo Biennial five years later. Moore was on the Board of Trustees at the Tate and the National Gallery. He was even offered a knighthood—and promptly refused it as he didn’t want to be viewed as part of the establishment. Proper Yorkshireman.

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This time, the bronzed beauty is off to Kew Gardens as part of their “Henry Moore: Monumental Nature” exhibition. Representing the largest ever outdoor display of the sculptor’s work, it will feature over 100 pieces including 30 of these “monumental statues”. If you get a chance, do go see it.

Meantime, I hear she’ll be back in Leeds sometime in 2027.