Reclining Figure: Festival

By 1949, Moore was already recognized as Britain's greatest living sculptor, having won the prize for sculpture at the Venice Biennale in 1948. The Arts Council suggested that a family group would be appropriate for its commission, based on the festival theme of "discovery", but Moore decided to create a reclining female form instead. The Tate Gallery organized a retrospective of Moore's works in 1951, to run alongside the festival on the South Bank. John Read produced a television documentary for the BBC about Moore which included the making of the sculpture, from the initial sketches to the casting of the full-size bronze.[1] For this sculpture, Moore used a new working method that he would continue to use for his later works, starting with initial sketches before making plaster maquettes, then creating a small bronze working model which would be enlarged to create the full-size final cast. Moore made his sketches and maquettes in 1950 (LH 292a, b and LH 292). A