Henry Moore

Henry Moore was an English artist best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze and stone sculptures, which are displayed around the globe as public works of art. The son of a Yorkshire coal miner, Moore survived mustard gas attacks during World War I before attending the Royal College of Art.

Influenced by pre-Columbian Toltec sculptures and organic natural forms like bones and pebbles, Moore pioneered the integration of negative space ('the hole') as an active compositional element in sculpture. During the Blitz in World War II, his harrowing shelter drawings of Londoners sleeping in the Tube stations moved the world. His undulating reclining figures established him as Britain's most celebrated 20th-century sculptor.