"In 1940, during the Blitz, when London was suffering constant air-raids, the sculptor Henry Moore became fascinated by the sight of people sheltering overnight in Underground railway stations. Over the next few months he filled two sketchbooks with drawings which provide a moving record of life in wartime London.
The drawings executed in pen and ink, wax crayon and watercolour, are among Moore's most important works: he used them as a means of exploring sculptural ideas which came to fruition after the war, and at the same time they reveal the artist, in perhaps less familiar guise, as a brilliant and inventive colourist."