Henry Moore Exhibition in Doncaster

At the end of July my mother and I went to Doncaster to see an exhibition of some of Henry Moore's work. Although he's known as a sculptor, he also did some work on miners during the war. He was from Castleford and he went down a pit there in 1942 and did some drawings of men working in the dark. Some of the art was on display in Doncaster and my mum asked me to go with her. We went at the end of July because Lee was in London for this thing that he likes, so I was free for the weekend.

My mum picked me up in her Mazda MX5 which my dad bought for her just before he died. I haven't been in it in forever but it is a nice ride. We went across to Doncaster and parked outside the restaurant I had earmarked. However, we then walked past somewhere called El Torero. I actually went on New Year's Eve in 2015, but it's changed a bit since then. They had a bunch of vegetarian options so we decided to go in there instead. 

We shared patatas aioli and garlic mushrooms, and I also went for jalapeno poppers and a salad. I also had a peach bellini which was yummy! The food was pretty good too. We then drove to the art gallery - which was a bit difficult because my satnav decided to completely give up on us and we had to go a long way round - but we got there eventually and parked. It's a new building that also houses a library and a train museum and has part of the frontage of the old Doncaster Girls High School. It was all pretty cool to see!

We went up to the exhibition. It was so interesting. One of Moore's sketchbooks has been taken apart so we could see all those pages up close. He used pencil and black crayon and a watercolour wash because, you know, pits are really dark. There were lots of preliminary pages and then some finished works. My mum and I had different favourites! It was really cool to see. There was one quite big sculpture by Moore there too. 

We walked round the rest of the gallery floor and looked at that stuff, then went downstairs to the cafe. The cafe has the original frontage for Doncaster Girls High School inside it; it's nice that they've kept this here on its original spot. I had a huge piece of chocolate fudge cake and my mum had some biscoff cheesecake, and we each had a cappucino. 

The sun had come out while we were inside so I asked my mum to put the roof down on her fancy car. It was nice to drive back to Barnsley with the wind in my hair! 

Peach bellini with my lunch. I didn't get any photos of my food!

Just inside the library

This is a photo of Henry Moore, right, when he was doing his studies down the pit

The front cover of one of the sketch books - it was really cool to see an artist's process through books like this

I will let all the above speak for themselves

My mum liked these studies of men's faces

Which became this finished work of four young men. As Moore went down the mine during World War II, many of the ordinary miners had signed up to fight, so the so called 'Bevin Boys' were working down the pits. Up close you could see how young these lads were

This was my favourite work in the whole exhibition. Up close you could even see the nails in the soles of his boots

And I also liked this ghostly figure emerging out of the darkness

This was the largest sculpture there and supposedly as it shows a man at work it did partly come from Moore's work in the mine

And the sculpture from the other side

Loved this quote!

It wasn't a huge exbihition but it was really good to see

I really liked this artwork in the main gallery

And these portraits

Cake! 

And my mum's cheesecake

And here we are in the car with the roof down on the way home!