Mini print depicting Henry Moore's Pitboys at Pit Head (1942), part of the Wakefield Permanent Art Collection.

In the early 1940s Moore was commissioned by Sir Kenneth Clark, chairman of the War Artists Advisory Committee, to illustrate the work of the Bevin Boys, the young men who were conscripted to dig coal to fuel the factories producing armaments for the war effort.

Moore returned to Wheldale Colliery in Castleford where his father had been pit manger. As with his shelter drawings, he used a technique of layering white wax crayon with watercolour, before building up the detail and texture with intricate marks of pen and ink. He considered this drawing to be the most successful work to come out of the commission.

Materials: Printed on smooth coated paper stock: 250gsm.
Dimensions: 280 x 356mm