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The exhibition 'Henry Moore Textiles' will be on view in the Sheep Field Barn Gallery at Henry Moore’s former home in Perry Green, Hertfordshire from 1 April to 18 October 2009, before continuing to Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, and to New York’s Museum of Arts and Design.

The exhibition, which has just returned from a critically acclaimed showing at Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh, includes for the first time an important 1943 drawing Textile Design for ‘Fruit and Flowers’ acquired by the Henry Moore Foundation at auction in December 2008. This drawing will be included in the displays alongside its only remaining fabric partner.

'Henry Moore Textiles' reveals a lesser-known aspect of Moore’s work, bringing together over 100 fabrics, 26 Moore textile drawings, four large-scale textile wall panels and two sketchbooks of textile designs, one of which only came to light in 2006. The vast majority of these works had never been on public display before this exhibition was launched at Perry Green in 2008.

Moore first became interested in fabrics during the Second World War when textile guru Zika Ascher commissioned him and other leading artists to create designs for silk scarves. Soon Moore had filled four notebooks with designs, not simply for this commission, but for furnishing fabrics and dress-making material. Textile design fitted Moore’s socialist aim of integrating modern art into daily life. The fact that these materials had a practical purpose suited the post-war climate, as did his more hard-edged designs, which incorporated barbed wire and twisted safety pins. His textiles feature surrealist motifs, as well as whimsical subjects seen nowhere else in his work – sea creatures, twisting caterpillars and piano keys. One of the most surprising elements of the textile designs is the vivid colour. The artist used shades like shocking pink and acid green to counter post-war drabness.

A fully-illustrated book, Henry Moore Textiles, edited by exhibition curator Anita Feldman, is available at Perry Green, and from www.henry-moore.org/pg.

'Henry Moore Textiles' is part of the 2009 Visitor Season at Perry Green. The artist’s restored house, sculpture gardens and studios are all open to the public, with displays including eight large tapestries from The Henry Moore Family Collection on show there for the first time. All visitors welcome, simply book your visit at www.henry-moore.org/pg or telephone 01279 843 333.