In December 1946, a retrospective exhibition of Moore's work opened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. At the time, it was the largest show ever held in the USA for a living British artist. On display were 58 of Moore's sculptures in stone, wood, lead, bronze and concrete, and 48 drawings, including a number of his depictions of figures sheltering from bomb raids in the London Underground during the Second World War.

Moore travelled to New York himself at the end of November 1946 for the installation and the show received attention in the New York and London press. A review in the New Yorker noted: "It is a good-sized collection, well planned and well selected". The chosen exhibits were "enough to give an excellent perspective on the man’s whole artistic development" (Robert M. Coates, 'The Art Galleries', New Yorker, 28 December 1946). Moore later credited the exhibition with providing the foundations and impetus for his growing international reputation in the years that followed.

The exhibition reportedly attracted 158,000 visitors at MoMA (where it was open 17 December 1946 - 16 March 1947) before touring to the Art Institute of Chicago (17 April - 18 May 1947) and then to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (18 June - August 1947). A book accompanying the show (0008703) was produced by curator James Johnson Sweeney, who had first met Moore at his Hampstead studio in 1932.