The sculpture which forms such an important element in the design of the Anzac Memorial is the work of Rayner Hoff.

Born in 1894, Hoff studied drawing and basic design at the Nottingham School of Arts and learned the basic skills of sculpture in his father's masonry yard. He served in the army in the Great War including a year in the trenches in France.

After the war he continued his studies in London and Italy and in 1923 came to Australia to take up a position as instructor in drawing and sculpture at Sydney Technical College.

In 1930 Bruce Dellit asked Hoff to create the sculptures for the Memorial. 'It did not take long for me to realise that in Hoff, Australia had acquired an artist of outstanding qualities', Dellit wrote after Hoff's tragically early death in 1937. As an artist, Hoff had qualities of greatness evidenced in his ability to portray the dramatic.

His concept forcefully included the commemoration of women at war, both in their personal loss and in their contribution to the war effort.

Hoff's other major public works included Governor Philip in the Manly Hotel, The National War Memorial, Adelaide, and the King George V Memorial, Canberra.

The dome of the Hall of Memory rises to a height of 26 metres. The 120 000 golden stars covering the ceiling honour the men and women from New South Wales who enlisted for service in First World War. From this number, 21 000 were killed, or died later from their wounds, and 50 000 were wounded. Many others were left with the after effects of war, including mental scarring.

When the Anzac Memorial was constructed between 1932 and 1934 there was a shortage of funds due to the effects of the Great Depression. In order to complete the building, the Trustees accepted a proposal that members of the public could contribute by purchasing a star for two shillings (20 cents) each. While not all of the stars were sold, sufficient funds were raised to enable the completion of the Memorial. The stars are made from plaster covered with gold paint and glued into position. It is not known why the density of the stars increases towards the top of the dome.

There are other plans by Bruce Dellit in the Library’s collection, including Anzac Memorial competition, sectional perspective, 1930 and Aerial view of Hyde Park … in relation to the Anzac Memorial now in course of erection, July 1932. They are located at ML 195 and DG 441 respectively.

Dellit trained under Byera Hadley at Sydney Technical College and Leslie Wilkinson at the University of Sydney. He was chief draftsman on the Brisbane City Hall project in the 1920s. While in Brisbane he worked on a number of landscape paintings, one of which, In Roma Street (watercolour, 1921), was acquired by the then National Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1922.

Dellit’s buildings include Kyle House and the Anzac Memorial in Sydney. He also designed the art deco interiors of the Kinsella funeral chapel (later used as a famous Sydney nightclub) and the Hotel Australia’s ballroom. His own house in Wahroonga was of a more modest, Spanish-influenced design.

This is the main war memorial in Sydney and one of the city's finest Art Deco buildings. It embodies the collective grief of the people of NSW at the loss of Australian servicemen and women since World War I. It is associated with the landing of Australian troops at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915, since fundraising for the memorial was established on the first anniversary of the landing.

Charles Bruce Dellit was born in Sydney and was educated at the Sydney Technical College under Byera Hadley and at Sydney University under Professor Wilkinson.

One of his earliest jobs was acting in the capacity of Chief Draftsman on the design of the Brisbane Town Hall.

On his return to Sydney, he entered into partnership with the old established firm of Spain & Cosh with whom he designed the building of Marcus Clark & Co Ltd, Scottish House and Evening News Building in Sydney and Dalgely's in Newcastle.

In 1929, he commenced practice privately designing Australia House, Kyle House, the Australia Hotel Ballroom and Dining Room, Sydney's Liberty Theatre, the Kinsella Chapels in Darlinghurst, Messrs Howes & Howes store and the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park. Delfin House, O'Connell Street was his last major work prior to his premature death in 1942.

Works: 

Kyle House, 27–31 Macquarie Place, 1931 

 Anzac War Memorial, Hyde Park, 1934

Dellit originally planned for numerous bronze sculptures to adorn the exterior of the Memorial. He planned for a standing figure on each of the corners, the 'Four Seasons' and sixteen seated figures, four to a side, representing 'the Arts of Peace and War'. Hoff transformed these classicized or allegorical figures to unmistakable Australian figures from the Great War – modern Anzacs in modern military dress, in stylised in modern form – which emphatically locate the Memorial in the Australian present. Their original bronze castings were changed to cast granite (ground granite packed into moulds), so that they would seem to be hewn from the building itself, or flowering from the buttresses, in Dellit's own words. The figures, heroic in size and broadly sculptured in sympathy with the character of the architecture, are shown with bowed heads, as if resting after their labours and sadly contemplating the havoc of the war years.