Featured rough sculpture desirability

A relative was a student in the 1950's of Cecil Howard ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_de_Blaquiere_Howard ), an American sculptor. This was something Howard did during one of the classes, and she's kept it all these years. What would you call something like this - a study? Are rough, unfinished, unsigned works like this desirable, and how would someone ensure the attribution?

 

I've edited in a correction to my original post. It was by a different one of her teachers, Cecil Howard, not Bruce Moore as I originally posted.

 

I didn't get any takers on my original post questions, but I thought I'd share this follow-up. With some research, and some luck, I did find a way to solidify the attribution of this unfinished sculpture. Sometimes research on seemingly hopeless pieces does deliver. This photo is from an article about his demonstration in a local paper. Although he did more work on the piece that day after the photo was taken, comparing that photo to the actual piece today matches several details, so they are surely the same.

 

That's lovely. His unfinished work does come up for auction. Sotheby's sold the contents of his studio in 2017. They'd be the one to contact.

https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2017/19th-20th-century-sculpture-l17230/lot.139.html

https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2017/19th-20th-century-sculpture-l17230/lot.113.html

Debora

 

Caption says "the sculpted face." Was it referred to in the article? Would have been an end of career piece. What was the school? And did your relative put anything about it in writing?

Debora

 

Yes, the face is mentioned a lot in the article. It was the only thing he did that day, as far as I can tell. The school was a sculpture school, associated with an east coast (USA) university, with a small student body (less than 10) by invitation. Cecil Howard passed away within 4 years of that photo, but I don't know if he finished other work in that time. The relative is still living. I've written down what she had to say about it. She has another finished plaster bust by that artist as well. There are also newspaper mentions of her that associate her as a student at the school near that time.