What is the first name of the well-known socialist who sold Draped Seated Woman at a fraction of its market value to the former London County Council?
In December 2005, the two ton Reclining Figure (1969–70) – insured for £3 million – was lifted by crane from the grounds of the Henry Moore Foundation on to a lorry and has not been recovered. Two men were jailed for a year in 2012 for stealing a sculpture called Sundial (1965) and the bronze plinth of another work, also from the foundation's estate. In October 2013 Standing Figure (1950), one of four Moore pieces in Glenkiln Sculpture Park, estimated to be worth £3 million, was stolen.
In 2012, the council of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets announced its plans to sell another version of Draped Seated Woman 1957–58, a 1.6-tonne bronze sculpture. Moore, a well-known socialist, had sold the sculpture at a fraction of its market value to the former London County Council on the understanding that it would be displayed in a public space and might enrich the lives of those living in a socially deprived area. Nicknamed Old Flo, it was installed on the Stifford council estate in 1962 but was vandalised and moved to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 1997. Tower Hamlets Council later had considered moving Draped Seated Woman to private land in Canary Wharf but instead chose to "explore options" for a sale. In response to the announcement an open letter was published in The Guardian, signed by Mary Moore, the artist's daughter, by Sir Nicholas Serota, Director of the Tate Gallery, by filmmaker Danny Boyle, and by artists including Jeremy Deller. The letter said that the sale "goes against the spirit of Henry Moore's original sale" of the work.
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