Henry Moore Artwork Catalogue
Knife Edge Two Piece
Knife Edge Two Piece
stamped Moore, 0/3
Knife Edge Two Piece 1962-65, shows Moore’s
re-engagement with abstraction during the 1960s. The work comprises two upright
forms, set parallel to each other on a bronze base. As you move around the
sculpture, the view changes dramatically. From the longest edge, the viewer is
confronted by wide, flat masses. End-on, the thinness of the two elements is
revealed, the flat masses now reduced to narrow forms with razor-sharp edges
which stretch upwards, slicing through the sky.
The original inspiration for
Knife Edge Two Piece came from a
fragment of bone. Moore admired the structural and sculptural properties of
bones, their combination of lightness and strength, and referred to the breast
bones of birds in particular as having the ‘lightweight fineness of a
knife-blade.’[1]
Translated into a monumental scale, the forms also recall the rock formations
that Moore admired as a child. The two forms are like the walls of great
canyons, while the slither of negative space between them forms a fissure in
the rock.
Moore saw the relationship
between the two forms in Knife Edge Two
Piece as different to his other two piece sculptures. Describing the
working model, he explained: ‘In some of the other works the relationship is of
one form accommodating another form, that is, one fitting into the other; in
others the contact is that of points nearly connecting, but in [this] sculpture
it is a kind of sliding relationship, like two sliding doors.’[2]
Indeed, as one moves around the work, the space between the forms seems to open
and close, revealing and then concealing the view beyond.
All three casts of Knife Edge Two Piece are on public
display. One occupies a prominent position outside the Houses of Parliament in
Westminster. The other two are in Queen Elizabeth Park, Vancouver, and the
Kykuit Rockefeller Estate, New York. Moore donated the Westminster cast to the
nation through the Contemporary Art Society, and chose the site himself.
Unveiled in November 1967, the siting was not universally popular, with one MP
asking Parliament why ‘this lovely part of Westminster should be littered with
something that looks like a crashed unidentified flying object.’ Since its
installation, however, the work has become a familiar backdrop to numerous
television interviews, and in 2016 it was granted Grade II* listed status on
account of its aesthetic quality, historic interest and for its place in an
area historically associated with the display of public sculpture.
Moore later made a larger but reversed version, Mirror Knife Edge 1977 (LH 714), for the entrance to the new east wing of the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., designed by the architect I.M. Pei.
[1] Philip James (ed.), Henry Moore on Sculpture: A Collection of the Sculptor’s Writings and Spoken Words, Macdonald, London 1966, p.378.
[2] Henry Moore, letter to Dennis Farr, 15 October 1963, Tate Artist Catalogue File, Henry Moore, A23945, published in Alice Correia, ‘Alice Correia, ‘Working Model for Knife Edge Two Piece 1962, cast 1963 by Henry Moore OM, CH’, catalogue entry, October 2013, in Henry Moore: Sculptural Process and Public Identity, Tate Research Publication, 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/henry-moore/henry-moore-om-ch-working-model-for-knife-edge-two-piece-r1171995