Henry Moore Institue

Free to enter, and adjacent to the free Leeds Art Gallery.

The Institute is a part of The Henry Moore Foundation, set up by the sculptor Henry Moore (1898-1986) in 1977 to encourage appreciation of the visual arts, especially sculpture.

“The Foundation has two or three main purposes. One is to help the appreciation of sculpture generally because I remember that as a young sculptor, there was nothing; there wasn't a single piece of sculpture in my home town... Leeds Art Gallery had nothing of any value. Another purpose is to look after my own work after I'm gone: probably exhibit it and also keep some of my things in suitable places in nature.”

Henry Moore

Interview in 1981

The Institute is firmly rooted in Leeds, where we work in partnership with Leeds Art Gallery to manage the sculpture collection and archive of Leeds Museums and Galleries, a collaboration that has built one of the strongest public collections of sculpture in Britain.

We are tasked with the responsibility to study sculpture, with our role to make a significant impact on the future of art history, placing sculpture right at the centre. We achieve this through an exhibitions and research programme that consistently re-thinks how we understand sculpture today, continuing Moore's legacy by making sculpture a necessary and relevant part of contemporary culture.