The Lightbox gallery and museum in Woking has opened two special exhibitions for the summer, including a rare opportunity to see colourful drawings by the renowned sculptor Henry Moore spanning the artist’s career.

Henry Moore in Colour has been organised in partnership with The Henry Moore Foundation. Although best known as one of the most influential and innovative sculptors of the modern era, Henry Moore (1898-1986) was also a remarkably talented and prolific draughtsman, producing nearly 7,500 drawings over seven decades.

Drawing provided Moore with a versatile tool, suitable to develop ideas for sculpture but also independently of it. Drawing was not just a means to support his sculptural practice but also a method to create finished artwork in its own right, and an essential daily visual exercise.

Whilst sculpture was primarily an art of form and space in which colour did not have a prominent role, in his drawings Moore explored the expressive potential of colour, often experimenting with painterly techniques.

By focusing on drawings, Henry Moore in Colour casts new light on this lesser known but enduring aspect of Moore’s art. From the life studies of his student days through to the casual drawings of his late years, these works from The Henry Moore Foundation reveal a deep appreciation of the unique characteristics and possibilities of colour in drawing, expressing a visual imagination that both integrates and enhances Moore’s practice in three dimensions.

The exhibition includes examples of his best-known works such as large works from the 1930s, and his “shelter” drawings of Londoners sleeping in the London Underground while sheltering from the Blitz during the Second World War.

The shelter drawings were influential in achieving widespread popular recognition for Moore following their display at the National Gallery.

Sebastiano Barassi, head of Henry Moore Collections & Programmes, said: “Henry Moore in Colour reveals his profound love and appreciation of the unique characteristics and possibilities of drawing. Moore continued to draw until the end of his life. This exhibition attempts to reveal the numerous ways in which it enabled him to study, express and experiment.”

The Lightbox’s second special exhibition is Material Thinking, which brings together for the first-time selected work by major artists from The Ingram Collection with work by contemporary artists associated with the Fine Art programme at the University of Gloucestershire, recognised as one of the country’s most innovative art schools.

Focusing on artists who use varied, unusual or unexpected ways of making, the exhibition explores The Ingram Collection – one of the most significantly publicly accessible collections of modern British art in the UK – as a historic context for artists working today, prompting conversations about what it is to make things, between disciplines and across generations.

Among the Ingram Collection artists featured are Barbara Hepworth, Graham Sutherland, Frank Auerbach, Elisabeth Frink, Anthony Caro and Lynn Chadwick.

The exhibition has been curated by Professor Angus Pryor of the University of Gloucestershire, who commented: “Material Thinking highlights how artists across generations incorporate observation, action, reaction, accident, impulse and instinct into their artistic practice, moving step-by-step to their final artwork.”

Entrance to exhibitions in the Main and Upper Gallery at The Lightbox, as well the museum Woking’s Story, is with a £12.50 day pass. Entry is free for Lightbox members and under 18s.

On Wednesdays from 10.30am-12.30pm entry to all gallery spaces is “pay what you wish”: this is available to all, with no minimum donation.