Henry Moore: Shadows on the Wall

8 Jun – 22 Sept 2024
Gilbert and Ildiko Butler Drawings Gallery, Floor 1

During the Blitz, from September 1940 – May 1941, crowds of people sought refuge in London’s Underground stations to escape the nightly bombardments by the German Air Force. Moved by what he saw there and in other makeshift shelters, the sculptor Henry Moore (1898–1986) documented these scenes in hundreds of haunting sketches known as the Shelter Drawings.

Shadows on the Wall investigates the artist’s fascination with the curved brick walls and cavernous tunnels of those spaces, taking these drawings as a point of departure for interpreting some of his post-war drawings and sculpture.

In the drawings on display, we see that Moore’s attention was absorbed as much by the spatial drama of the shelters as by the human drama of strangers forced to huddle together. The artist’s interest in representing the confining spaces and brick walls of the shelters was further developed in the wartime sketches he made in the Yorkshire coalmines and in his illustrations for a play, The Rescue.

This new visual vocabulary informed some of his most individual post-war sculpture, particularly in its relation to architecture. Two striking examples of this are Moore’s designs for a wall relief on a new building in Rotterdam, the Bouwcentrum, and the small bronze maquette featuring a figure seated in front of a wall, relating to the commission for the UNESCO building in Paris.

Included with Gallery Entry.

Shadows on the Wall is presented in collaboration with the Henry Moore Foundation.
The programme of displays in the Drawings Gallery is generously supported by the International Music and Art Foundation, with additional support from James Bartos.
The exhibition has been made possible as a result of the Government Indemnity Scheme.

The Courtauld would like to thank HM Government for providing Government Indemnity and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Arts Council England for arranging the indemnity.

Shadows on the Wall was conceived by Penelope Curtis, and curated with Alexandra Gerstein and Ketty Gottardo.