Henry Moore OM, CH

A Tilbury Shelter Scene

1941

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On loan

The Hepworth Wakefield (Wakefield, UK): Bill Brandt / Henry Moore

Artist: Henry Moore OM, CH 1898–1986
Medium: Ink, watercolour, crayon and gouache on paper
Dimensions: Support: 419 × 381 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Presented by the War Artists Advisory Committee 1946
Reference: N05708

Display caption

During the winter of 1940-1 Moore,
in his capacity as a war artist, was given access to London's public shelters. Though he concentrated on underground stations, he did make drawings of other shelters, including a vast area in the basement of a warehouse in Tilbury where he noted 'Figures lying against platform with great bales of paper above also making beds¿ Dramatic, dismal
lit, masses of reclining figures fading
to perspective point - Scribbles and scratches, chaotic foreground¿
Dark wet settings'.

Gallery label, September 2004

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Catalogue entry

N05708 A TILBURY SHELTER SCENE 1941

Inscr. ‘Moore 41’ b.l.
Pen, chalk, wash and gouache, 16 1/2×15 (42×38).
Presented by the War Artists' Advisory Committee 1946.
Exh: National War Pictures, National Gallery, 1945, and R.A., October–November 1945 (170); Arts Council, Tate Gallery, 1951 (140).
Repr: Read and Sylvester, I, 1957, p.228; Hodin, 1958, pl.31.

See N05706. The preparatory drawing in one of the Shelter Sketch-Books is inscribed ‘Piles of bricks, figures against them (far end of Tilbury shelter)’ (repr. Editions Poetry London, 1944).

Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, II