Footnotes

Provenance
With Galerie Beyeler, Basel, 1969
With Fischer Fine Art, London, 1972
With James Kirkman, London, 1981
With Fischer Fine Art, London, 1982
With Rex Irwin, Sydney, 1990
Barry O'Keefe, Q.C.
With Peter Nahum at The Leicester Galleries, London
His sale; Christie's, London, 15 November 2006, lot 219 (as Shelter Drawing: Three Sleeping Figures), where purchased by the present owner
Private Collection, U.K.

Exhibited
Basel, Galerie Beyeler, Henry Moore: Drawings, Watercolours and Gouaches, May-June 1970, cat.no.58
Cologne, Bankunst Galerie, Henry Moore: Plastiken und Zeichnungen, 1970-71, cat.no.64
Salzburg, Galerie Welz, Henry Moore: Plastiken und Grafik, 1981, cat.no.17
London, Fischer Fine Art, The British Neo-Romantics 1935-50, July-September 1983 (not in catalogue)
Sydney, Rex Irwin, Henry Moore: A Tribute, May-July 1990, cat.no.17
Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Henry Moore, April-July 1992, cat.no.17

Literature
Ann Garrould (ed.), Henry Moore: Complete Drawings 1940-49, Volume 3, The Henry Moore Foundation, in association with Lund Humphries, Much Hadham and Aldershot, 2001, p.71, cat.no.AG40-41.172, HMF 1748 (ill.b&w)

The present work is one of Moore's many, and venerated, shelter drawings that he undertook during the Second World War. Moore had moved back to London from Kent in the summer of 1940, as the county was by this time considered a restricted area due to its proximity to the Channel and the looming threat of invasion. On Kenneth Clark's appointment to Chairman of the War Artists' Advisory Committee, he persuaded Moore to become a War Artist, and displayed his resultant drawings on the, at the time, empty walls of the National Gallery in London, as the contents of the galleries had been moved to Wales for safe keeping for the duration of the war. Moore's first commission for the committee was to present a series of works depicting civil defences of his choice, a series which became drawings of figures seeking refuge in the sprawling network of the London Underground, and other subterranean shelter locations during the Blitz. He once commented on an experience he had, travelling home to Hampstead on the Northern line:

'When we got to Belsize Park we weren't allowed out of the station for an hour because of the bombing. I spent the time looking at the rows of people sleeping on the platforms. I had never seen so many reclining figures, and even the train tunnels seemed to be like the holes in my sculpture. Amid the grim tension, I noticed groups of strangers formed together into intimate groups and children asleep within feet of the passing trains.' (Henry Moore, quoted in The Life of Henry Moore, by Roger Berthoud, Giles de la Mare Publishers, London, 2003, p.191).

During this time, the general public were visiting the National Gallery in their droves to hear the free lunchtime concerts of the renowned pianist Myra Hess, and whilst at the gallery many also stayed to view the works on display. This was the first time that Moore's work had received such broad public acclaim and recognition, which the artist later said was due to the fact that 'people could relate to them, because they were drawings of themselves' (Henry Moore, quoted in Ann Garrould (ed.), Henry Moore: Complete Drawings 1940-49, Volume 3, The Henry Moore Foundation, in association with Lund Humphries, Much Hadham and Aldershot, 2001, p.ix).

This work depicts a slightly more organised shelter scene than those in his earlier drawings, of three sleeping figures on makeshift beds. It was initially a part of what is sometimes referred to as Moore's Third Shelter Sketchbook, although it contains ideas similar to those in the Second, suggesting that Moore was perhaps working in different sketchbooks simultaneously.