Christie’s Impressionist & Modern Art Sale Highlights Late-Career Henry Moore Sculpture

In the early 1970s, British sculptor Henry Moore started to consider his legacy. His later works combined the abstract and figurative styles that struggled for dominance throughout his career. Around this time, Moore executed Girl: Bust, a geometric work carved from Roman travertine marble. Christie’s upcoming Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale will feature this rounded sculpture. It comes to the market for the first time since 1998. Girl: Bust is intentionally abstract with just enough figurative elements to give the viewer a hint. “Abstract qualities of design are essential… but to me of equal importance is [the] psychological human element,” Moore said, as quoted in Christie’s lot description.  

The upcoming auction includes works by other key Modernist sculptors, including Jean Arp and Henri Laurens. Ossip Zadkine’s Le Couple is notable as well. The Belarus-born artist lived all over Europe before settling in the Parisian avant-garde scene. Le Couple, completed in 1969, measures over seven feet tall and pays tribute to Zadkine’s Cubist influences. 

Marc Chagall’s Les trois bouquets ou Le bouquet renversé is another leading lot. Chagall painted this work in the mid-1930s while struggling to obtain French citizenship. This painting reflects the artist’s feelings toward his new country. A large bouquet rests on the back of a red-orange ox. A line of houses, a white picket fence, and small human faces appear in the background. View this or any other lot on Christie’s website.