Monumental Nature explores one of the fundamental relationships in Henry Moore’s work: sculpture and the natural world. Rather than placing his bronzes against the neutral background of a museum, Kew allows them to inhabit landscape — something Moore himself believed could amplify sculpture’s visual and emotional power.

The exhibition spans almost seven decades and places 30 monumental sculptures throughout the Gardens and Temperate House. Their rounded bodies, openings, hollows and bone-like structures enter into dialogue with trees, plants, changing light and Kew’s historic architecture. Indoors, the exhibition expands the story through drawings, prints, carvings and models, showing how Moore developed ideas by closely observing natural forms.

There is also a contemporary layer to the presentation: Kew considers Moore’s fascination with nature from the perspective of today's climate and biodiversity crises, asking what his work can tell us about humanity’s place within interconnected natural systems. The exhibition is organised with the Henry Moore Foundation.

Henry Moore (1898–1986) was one of the most influential British sculptors of the 20th century and a central figure in the international development of modern sculpture.

He is best known for monumental bronzes based on the human body — particularly his recurring reclining figures, mothers and children, and abstracted organic forms. Bones, stones, shells and landscapes frequently provided starting points, but Moore transformed them into a highly recognisable language of solids and voids.

Crucially, Moore did not think of monumental sculpture as something that belonged only inside museums. Landscape was part of the artwork. That makes Kew an unusually appropriate place to encounter him.