Like many of his peers who emerged in the 1970s, who were preoccupied with finding a new and distinctive sculptural language, Pope's work marked a disassociation with the brightly coloured, welded metal or moulded plastic sculpture of an earlier generation and he began to be known for using mainly natural materials, which he carved, or more simply, stacked and assembled. The works in the exhibition in the gallery and sculpture park at Roche Court comprise wood, stone, chalk, terracotta and rope. However, whilst these early works reveal his understanding and concern for materials, they are not about the actual materials per se. Instead, he spoke about his sculpture of the time as being about space and that "the way I use space is by affecting the material". Norbert Lynton wrote in 1980: "Pope needs a material he can work intimately, that resist as well as guides, makes physical demands on the sculptor, possibly quite extreme ones. When he works clay to make marvellously delicate terracottas he has to proceed with the care of a jeweller, when working chalk or sandstone lumps, with the attack of a lumberjack".

Nicholas Pope lives and works in Herefordshire and his work resides in many institutional collections, including that of Tate, the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh, the Solomon R. Guggenheim in New York, and Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane.

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