Moses is a series of three different painted steel statues of geometric shapes, created by Tony Smith.
The sculpture is fundamentally abstract, and it changes substantially as a viewer walks around it—there is no clear “front” or “back.” The work's title does evoke a certain anthropomorphism, however.
Smith often titled his sculptures based on the images they triggered in his imagination.
This sculpture's forms summoned for him an image of the Hebrew prophet Moses holding the tablets of the Ten Commandments in upraised arms.
Mark Stevens wrote: “In a massive black sculpture such as Moses, you can sense the geometric backbone of nature as well as the girders of the modern city; the sculpture is a bold statement full of whispering angles.”[3] According to a 1985 gallery catalogue, Smith created Moses in a significantly smaller version (22.5 x 28 x 16 in.)