Henry Moore

Henry Spencer Moore (1898–1986) was one of the most influential British artists of
the twentieth century. This catalogue considers Moore’s celebrated Shelter drawings
as the point of departure for a new reading of the artist’s fascination with images
of walls, during and immediately after World War II. It accompanies a focused
exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery.
After the destruction of his London studio early in World War II, Henry Moore began
drawing figures sheltering from bomb raids in the London Underground. This catalogue
and exhibition consider Moore’s celebrated series as the point of departure for a new
reading of the artist’s fascination with images of walls, during and immediately after
World War II.
In the London Underground, where Moore drew these figures, the walls of these
sheltered spaces came to absorb his attention in an altogether new way, becoming
scene-setters, and key components of his drawings. This fascination with the bricks and
the presence of walls, their texture, mass and volume, became especially important after
his project to illustrate the wartime radio play The Rescue, based on Homer’s Odyssey.
Henry Moore: Shadows on the Wall, a collaboration with the Henry Moore
Foundation, suggests for the first time that the walls in his drawings offer a new way to
understand some of his most individual and monumental Post-War sculpture projects.