In Family Group (Moore), how is the Background discussed?
The work began with drawings and maquettes made by Moore in the mid-1930s after Walter Gropius suggested a Moore sculpture for Impington Village College.  The college opened in 1939, but the war stopped Cambridgeshire County Council giving a commission to Moore.  The council's education officer Henry Morris approached Moore again in 1944, and Moore made a small clay model in 1945, now held by the Henry Moore Foundation in Perry Green, Hertfordshire.  In this model, the father's head had a distinctive notch, also seen in other early works such as Four-Piece Composition: Reclining Figure of 1934, and Reclining Figure 1938.  Moore also made several other clay models, some cast in bronze, with three held by the Tate.  Eventually, his ideas were rejected because funding was not available, and the project in Cambridgeshire went unrealised.  An example of a cast from this early work, LH 239, is held by the Tate.
Moore returned to the design in 1947, when he was asked to create a sculpture for a new school in Stevenage, at a time when Hertfordshire County Council was involved in an ambitious building programme of new schools and devoted part of the budget to sourcing artworks from leading British artists.  Barclay School was designed by Yorke Rosenberg Mardall, and was the first purpose-built secondary school constructed in the UK after the Second World War.  Despite some reluctance from the council members, Moore was formally commissioned in 1949.  He accepted a small fee, just £750, sufficient to cover the cost of materials, casting and transport, on condition that he could make further copies for commercial sale.
He reworked a selected small clay maquette as a small plaster model, removing the notch from the male's head, so the three figures became more similar to each other (see LH 259), and then enlarged this model to a full-size plaster model, over an armature, working with his assistant Bernard Meadows.  This was the first time Moore made a near-life-size plaster model.  The large plaster model was completed in 1949, and they then made a plaster second model, before casting the sculpture in bronze.
Barclay School Bernard Meadows Henry Moore Foundation Four-Piece Composition: Reclining Figure Henry Moore Impington Village College Tate secondary school Yorke Rosenberg Mardall Walter Gropius Cambridgeshire County Council Perry Green, Hertfordshire Stevenage Reclining Figure 1938 maquette Hertfordshire County Council Henry Morris