Henry Moore had worked with a firm of weavers to produce his textile designs, and at the suggestion of his daughter Mary, who had been struck by an exhibition of work from West Dean, agreed to license eight tapestries to be woven at the College. They were well received when exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1980 and Moore then commissioned further tapestries, 10 of which now hang in the Aisled Barn at the Henry Moore Foundation in Hertfordshire. These commissions allowed a professional studio to be set up alongside the teaching programme at West Dean College, and the weaving team went on to complete a total of 23 tapestries for The Henry Moore Foundation.

All the tapestries were made from existing Moore drawings. A black and white photograph of the drawing was enlarged to the size of the intended tapestry, reversed to produce a cartoon and attached to the selvedge to provide a guide for the weavers.

Dyeing of the yarn was carried out in the Studio and the weavers mixed colours for the weft, combining threads of differing weights and materials to recreate effects of tone and texture.

The 'mother and child' theme dominates many of the tapestries, the drawing for which originated in the 1940s, inspired by the birth of Moore's only child, Mary. The decision to translate the drawings into tapestries coincided with the birth of Mary's own child.

The array of media used by Moore in his originals presented some interesting challenges to the weavers. They had to represent charcoal, wax crayon, pastel, chinagraph, chalk and felt-tipped pen washed over with watercolour; some of the colours being superimposed, others spreading into the thin blotting paper on which he drew. The weavers' achievement was in finding equivalent subtleties in the medium of wool.

Draped Reclining Figure 1986
As Moore was aware when enlarging his own sculptures from a maquette to monumental scale, exact enlargement are often unsatisfactory and adaptations have to be made. This tapestry is 10 times the size of the drawing and certain highlighted areas have been shaded to prevent them 'leaping out.'

Mother and Child Holding Apple 1982 - 83
The scale of this tapestry, as well as the nature of the original drawing in charcoal led the weavers to use coarser warp and weft. Moore agreed to the use of delicate colours in the background of what was a monochrome drawing.