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Explore our site

Exhibition: Saving St Paul's: The Watch and the Second World War

a silhouette of a male figure wearing a hat against a background of St Paul's bell tower

Exhibition: Saving St Paul's: The Watch and the Second World War

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couple reading service schedule during consecration service

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Ways to donate

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Our digital resources

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Stories from St Paul's podcast

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Stories from St Paul's podcast

Mother and Child: Hood, by Henry Moore

Henry Moore's Mother and Child:hood
Photograph of Mother and Child: Hood by Peter Smith.

Mother and Child: Hood by Henry Moore

The arrival in the Cathedral of a groundbreaking sculpture by Henry Moore initiated a new relationship with contemporary art which continues to this day.
The smooth organic form of Henry Moore’s Mother and Child: Hood seems to invite visitors to stroke its marble surface. It is the culmination of Moore’s reflections over many years of the mother and child relationship.

Three faces of motherhood

Installed in the Cathedral in 1983, it was Moore’s final large scale work before his death in 1986. The design was worked up from maquettes (scale models of an unfinished sculpture), a number of which can be seen on the Henry Moore foundation’s website. 

Moore made the sculpture specifically for its location in the Minor Canons’ Aisle.  The work presents three stages of motherhood: conception, gestation and parenting. These gradually reveal themselves as you walk around the sculpture. 

‘My sculpture is becoming less representational, less an outward visual copy, and so what some people would call more abstract; but only because I believe in that in this way I can present the human psychological content of my work with the greatest directness and intensity.’ – Henry Moore, 1967 

Henry Moore at Mother and Child
Henry Moore visits his statue of Mother and Child; with Dean Alan Webster (Centre) and Minor Canon Philip Buckler, 27th March 1984 (Ref. No. 1948).

A contemporary piece

Mother and Child:Hood seems entirely at odds with the controlled geometry of the building’s architecture, but is, at the same time, still at home in its niche. 

The undulating back of the work owes its shape to an animal bone which Moore had in his studio, while the front offers a towering mother figure, whose robe provides a protective enclosure for the cotton-reel headed infant on her knee. This design references Romanesque and Renaissance images of the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus. 

Following the success of this installation, the Cathedral began to recognise the potential of contemporary artists contributing to its working life. Some of the best known British contemporary artists of the last twenty years have exhibited in the building – including Yoko Ono, Anthony Gormley, Mark Wallinger and Sokari Douglas Camp. 

Explore our interactive map of St Paul's to see the location of Henry Moore's piece, alongside other key pieces of art and monuments on the Cathedral floor and in the Crypt.

More from our Collections

Mary by Bill Viola

Martyrs and Mary by Bill Viola

These two affecting large-scale video installations were created by internationally acclaimed artist Bill Viola.

Find out more
The Light of the World Painting

The Light of the World by William Holman Hunt

William Holman Hunt’s painting is one of the most viewed 20th-century art pieces in the world, with a rich tapestry of symbolism to be unravelled.

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St Martin Divides his Cloak

St Martin of Tours by Hughie O'Donoghue

A painting commissioned by the Imperial Society of Knight’s Bachelor brings a contemporary take on a well-known moment in the life of St Martin.

Find out more
5.1.1

Tyndale's New Testament

Tyndale’s Bible was one of the most dangerous books in Tudor England, and was even returned to St Paul’s in secret.

Find out more
Royal Jubilees - QEII entering

Royal Jubilees

Learn about the history of the Jubilee celebrations held at St Paul’s – from Queen Victoria’s first ever celebration, to the world tours and river pageants of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign.

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