Miners

Prints and Drawings

1942

Henry Spencer Moore
English, 1898-1986

English sculptor Henry Moore was already well respected in modern art circles when, in 1940, art historian Kenneth Clark asked him to become an Official War Artist to document Britain’s efforts in World War II. At first Moore refused; however, soon after he himself had to hide in an underground subway tunnel during a German bombing raid, he accepted Clark’s offer. Moore’s first government assignment was to capture graphically the fear, pain, and anguish he witnessed in the tunnels, resulting in a powerful series of bomb-shelter drawings.

By the end of summer 1941, Moore’s interest in producing shelter drawings had waned, and his friend Herbert Read, a philosopher and writer, suggested he depict coal miners who, because their work was crucial to the war effort, were called “Britain’s Underground Army.” The son of a miner, Moore felt an immediate connection to this new subject, and he returned to his hometown, Castleford, to begin the series. Years later he described the brutality of mining conditions: “If one were to describe what Hell might be like, this would do.” After completing one sketchbook in the mine, Moore returned to his studio, where he filled two additional notebooks with images of miners; the Art Institute’s drawings were removed from one such book.

Moore’s concentration on miners allowed him to focus on two themes he had not yet explored : men and the figure in motion. Previously, he had depicted principally women and children and the figure at rest. This shift is illustrated in this sketch; constricted to narrow, low tunnels, ranged one above the other, miners walk, bend, and use picks and shovels. Though his figures are not static, Moore acknowledged that their actions were so constrained by the space so that they could use only the top half of their bodies: “the lower part is stuck [to the floor of the mine] as it were to the pedestal.”

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Henry Moore
Title: Miners
Place: England (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1942
Medium: Brush and gray wash, over white, black, and yellow crayon, over graphite, squared in graphite, on off-white wove paper
Inscriptions: Signed, lower right, in brush and black ink: "Moore/42"; inscribed, top center, in pen and black ink: "Miners using picks & shovels;" verso, center, in graphite: "3 (right)"
Dimensions: 25.2 × 17.5 cm (9 15/16 × 6 15/16 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection
Reference Number: 1998.730

The Henry Moore Foundation, edited by Ann Garrould, Henry Moore: Volume 3, Complete Drawings 1940–49 (London, 2001), p. 134, no. AG 42.69/HMF 1971b (ill.).

Providence, R. I., Annmary Brown Memorial, Brown University, “Poetry and Fact in Modern Art,” May 2–June 5, 1962.
Wellesley, Mass., Wellesley College, “Catalogue of European and American Sculpture, Paintings, and Drawings at Wellesley College,” 1958.
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, November 1964.
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 1979–1980.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Drawn to Form: Modern Drawings from the Dorothy Braude Edinburg Collection,” June 11–September 7, 1999.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Drawings in Dialogue: Old Master Through Modern, The Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection,” June 3–July 30, 2006, pp. 216-217, cat. 163B (ill.).

Sold by the artist to Dorothy Braude Edinburg, 1954; given to the Art Institute, 1998.

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