Bronze Form

Henry Moore

1985

Bronze

J. Paul Getty Museum

A large, abstract bronze sculpture with smooth, curving forms stands outdoors on a pedestal. The sculpture is set against a backdrop of rolling hills and a cloudy sky. This immense bronze sculpture is more than fourteen feet high. Its title does not reveal a specific subject and the form can be seen as abstract--its golden, undulating surfaces glimmering in sunlight. But the sculpture's vertical orientation also evokes an upright human figure. The dramatic, curvilinear contours suggest that the sculptor had a female form in mind. The sculptor Henry Moore always insisted that his work relate to recognizable forms, "Purely abstract sculpture seems to me to be an activity that would be better fulfilled in another art such as architecture. . . . I have never been tempted to remain a purely abstract sc