Henry Moore: A Shelter Sketchbook
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Good
In the darkest nights of the London Blitz, one of Britain's greatest sculptors descended into the city's underground shelters and bore witness to a haunting, subterranean world — and Henry Moore: A Shelter Sketchbook presents the remarkable artistic record he created there. Commissioned as an official war artist in 1940, Henry Moore filled page after page with deeply evocative drawings of Londoners huddled in the tunnels of the Underground, their bundled figures rendered in wax crayon, ink, and watercolour, capturing both their vulnerability and an extraordinary, quiet resilience. With a scholarly commentary by Frances Carey, this volume contextualises the sketchbook within Moore's broader artistic development and the wider cultural history of the Second World War. These shelter drawings stand as some of the most powerful works of art produced during the war years, illustrating Moore's instinctive connection between the human figure and the landscape — here, the curved tunnel walls become almost geological, echoing the monumental reclining forms for which he is celebrated worldwide. Published by British Museum Publications, this edition presents the sketchbook in meticulous detail, allowing readers to study the intimacy of each page as Moore originally conceived it. A testament to art's capacity to illuminate the human condition in extremis, this volume leaves one wondering: how does catastrophe not destroy creativity, but instead forge it into something enduring?
Author: Henry Moore
Format: Hardback
Published: 1988, British Museum Publications
Genre: The arts
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Good
In the darkest nights of the London Blitz, one of Britain's greatest sculptors descended into the city's underground shelters and bore witness to a haunting, subterranean world — and Henry Moore: A Shelter Sketchbook presents the remarkable artistic record he created there. Commissioned as an official war artist in 1940, Henry Moore filled page after page with deeply evocative drawings of Londoners huddled in the tunnels of the Underground, their bundled figures rendered in wax crayon, ink, and watercolour, capturing both their vulnerability and an extraordinary, quiet resilience. With a scholarly commentary by Frances Carey, this volume contextualises the sketchbook within Moore's broader artistic development and the wider cultural history of the Second World War. These shelter drawings stand as some of the most powerful works of art produced during the war years, illustrating Moore's instinctive connection between the human figure and the landscape — here, the curved tunnel walls become almost geological, echoing the monumental reclining forms for which he is celebrated worldwide. Published by British Museum Publications, this edition presents the sketchbook in meticulous detail, allowing readers to study the intimacy of each page as Moore originally conceived it. A testament to art's capacity to illuminate the human condition in extremis, this volume leaves one wondering: how does catastrophe not destroy creativity, but instead forge it into something enduring?