Henry Moore
British, 1890–1986

Henry Moore was the most important British sculptor of the 20th century, and although best known all over the world for his monumental sculpture, he was also a prolific printmaker. Non-Western art was crucial in shaping his early work - he would say that his visits to the ethnographic collections of the British Museum were more important than his academic study. Later, leading European modernists such as Picasso, Arp, Brancusi and Giacometti became influences. And uniting these inspirations was a deeply felt humanism. He returned again and again to the motifs of the mother and child, and the reclining figure, and often used abstract form to draw analogies between the human body and the landscape. Although sculpture remained his principal medium, he was also a fine draughtsman, and toward the end of his career he produced a number of etchings and prints that reflect and capture the themes present throughout his broad body of work.