Henry Moore: Shadows on the Wall

This focused exhibition considers Henry Moore’s celebrated Shelter drawings as the point of departure for a new reading of the artist’s fascination with images of the wall, during and immediately after World War II.

In the London Underground, Moore drew figures sheltering from the bomb raids. The walls of these spaces came to absorb his attention in an altogether new way, becoming scene-setters and key components of his drawings. Moore became fascinated with the bricks and the presence of walls, their texture, mass and volume. They 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 is a collaboration between The Courtauld Gallery and the Henry Moore Foundation. The exhibition suggests for the first time that the walls in Moore’s drawings offer a new way to understand some of his most individual and monumental Post-War sculpture projects.