The aftermath of World War II , The Holocaust , and the age of the atomic bomb instilled in the sculpture of the mid-1940s a sense that art should return to its pre-cultural and pre-rational origins . In the literature of the day , writers such as Jean-Paul Sartre advocated a similar reductive philosophy . At an introductory speech in New York City for an exhibition of one of the finest modernist sculptors , Alberto Giacometti , Sartre spoke of " The beginning and the end of history " . Moore 's sense of England emerging undefeated from siege led to his focus on pieces characterised by endurance and continuity
The Holocaust
The Holocaust
Henry Moore