STANDING AT THE ENTRANCE to the East Building of theNational Gallery of Art, Washington, Henry Moore’s Knifeedge mirror two piece (1976–78; Fig.43)1 is one of the artist’s best-known works in North America. It keeps company in thisrespect with the Lincoln Center Reclining figure (1962–65) inNew York and Three forms vertebrae (1978–79) outside the CivicHall in Dallas, as well as Atom piece (1964–66), commemoratingthe site of the first nuclear chain reaction in Chicago, nowrenamed Nuclear energy. The latter is one of the few sculpturesto have escaped the fate of Moore’s ‘late-period’ works, definedby Peter Fuller over two decades ago, as having received ‘verylittle critical evaluation or interpretation’, a state of affairs thatholds true today.2 From a European perspective, the con -centration of important late works, particularly commissions, in North America has led to a narrow view of this period as dominated by monumental, impersonal public sculptureslacking the vivid historical context of the pre-War carvings and wartime Shelter drawings.3 Yet it was only after 1960 thatMoore was to create some of the most intriguing works of hiscareer, developing ideas that had first been broached in the1930s. Powerful, complex abstract forms, experimentationwith materials and scale, as well as a new dynamic relationshipwith architecture, define the work of this period. Moreover, it was primarily in North America that Moore found theatmosphere in which this new phase could unfold.4 Recentresearch on Moore has vigorously challenged the hagiographythat for so long encumbered writing on his work, but has notso far countered the bias towards the first four decades of hisworking life.5 This article aims to illuminate the commission-ing and fabrication of Knife edge mirror and to suggest some waysin which it epitomises Moore’s late period, and what mighteven be described as his transatlantic rebirth.Moore’s aversion to architects and architectural commissions

is well known, and it is thus surprising to learn the degree towhich the forms of Knife edge mirror were developed in concertwith I.M. Pei, the architect of the East Building. The then

Director of the National Gallery of Art, J. Carter Brown, whowas the ‘third man’ in the commissioning process, wrote toMoore in May 1973 requesting ‘a great Henry Moore for the

This article is based on a paper first given as Colloquium CCXLII at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington,and was completed while the author was Ailsa Mellon Bruce Senior Fellow atCASVA. Many thanks are due to friends and colleagues at CASVA for their comments. Thanks also for their assistance to James Cooper, Penelope Curtis,Maygene Daniels, Amanda Douberley, Anita Feldman, Valerie Fletcher, JeanHenry, Derek Howarth, Dorothy Kosinski, Paul Matisse, James Meyer, MichaelParke-Taylor, Michael Phipps, Shelley Sturman, Katy May, Gregory Vershbowand Anne Wagner. Throughout these notes the National Gallery of Art, Washing-ton, is cited as NGA. This article is for Malcolm Clendenin (1964–2011) and hisfriends at CASVA.1 Catalogued as Mirror knife edge in A. Bowness, ed.: Henry Moore. Complete Sculpture,Volume 5, 1974–1980, London 1983, no.714. The title Knife edge mirror used through-out this article is an abbreviation of that given by the NGA: Knife edge mirror two piece.2 For Nuclear energy, see I.A. Boal: ‘Ground zero: Henry Moore’s “Atom Piece” atthe University of Chicago’, in J. Beckett and F. Russell, eds.: Henry Moore. Critical

Essays, London 2003, pp.221–41; C. Stephens: ‘Henry Moore’s “Atom Piece”: The1930s generation comes of age’, in Beckett and Russell, op. cit., pp.243–56; and P. Fuller: Henry Moore, London 1993, p.45. For a recent publication that virtuallyomits any account of Moore’s work in North America, see C. Lichtenstern: HenryMoore. Work – Theory – Impact, London 2008.3 One writer has recently described the ‘Beaux-Arts monumentality’ of these works, revealing the ‘establishment – rather than the avant-garde nature of his lateproduction’; see C. Pearson: Designing UNESCO. Art, Architecture and InternationalPolitics at Mid-Century, Farnham 2010, p.264; and C. Stephens, ed.: exh. cat. HenryMoore, London (Tate) and Toronto (Art Gallery of Ontario) 2010, esp. p.17.4 H. Seldis: Henry Moore in America, New York 1973, remains the best account ofMoore’s presence in North America, and includes important primary material. Suchan account should be set alongside the commissions Moore received from Germanmuseums and municipalities, for which, see Lichtenstern, op. cit. (note 2).5 See, for example, Beckett and Russell, op. cit. (note 2); A. Wagner: Mother Stone,New Haven and London 2005; and Stephens, op. cit. (note 3).

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43. Knife edge mirror two piece, by Henry Moore. 1976–78. Bronze, 535 by 721 by363 cm. (National Gallery of Art, Washington, gift of the Morris and GwendolynCaffritz Foundation, 1978. Photograph: Gregory Vershbow, January 2011).

Henry Moore’s ‘Knife edge mirror two piece’, at theNational Gallery of Art, Washingtonby JOHN-PAUL STONARD

44. Large spindle piece, by Henry Moore. 1974 (first cast in 1968). Bronze, 335 cm.high. (North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh).

Pennsylvania façade’ of the East Building.6 He emphasised theimportance of Pennsylvania Avenue as the ‘great symbolic wayjoining the White House with the Capitol and the SupremeCourt’, and added that Pei had custom-designed a pedestal atthe end of a long sculpture pool on the north side of the build-ing. A mock-up of a small bronze by Moore had already beentried on the architectural model, as photographs in the Galleryarchive demonstrate.7Moore accepted the commission immediately.8 He was

visited by Brown at his home and studio in Perry Green, MuchHadham, that summer but it was not until May the next year(1974) that he travelled to Washington to view the site, stillunder construction, and also to view the large architecturalmodel of the East Building.9 It was then that Moore suggested acrucial change to the siting of the sculpture, moving it north of the building line, essentially sliding Pei’s pedestal out from theterrace.10 Moore’s rationale was clear: he did not want the sculp-ture to be subservient to the building, to be mere decoration. Hewas perhaps more mindful of this condition than the other artistscommissioned to make works for the new building, includingAlexander Calder, Isamu Noguchi, Anthony Caro, David Smithand James Rosati, all of whom contributed sculptures, Joan Miróand Hans Arp, who were represented by tapestries, and RobertMotherwell, who contributed a large painting.11 Moore’s aver-sion to producing ‘architectural sculpture’ can be traced back to

his involvement with the constructivist milieu of the 1930s,when collaborations were encouraged, which, as his biographerRoger Berthoud has noted, brought out a ‘competitive feelingwhich marked his attitude to architects and their products formuch of his life’.12 The origins of this were certainly in Moore’sself-conception as an artist who had inherited the task of forgingsculpture as an independent art from those such as Gaudier-Brzeska, Brancusi and Epstein at a time when, as Ezra Poundonce put it, most sculptors were ‘engaged wholly in making gas-fittings and ornaments for electric light globes . . .’.13 AsMoore later made clear when working on the Reclining figure forthe Lincoln Center, this was not only a matter of retaining a freechoice of subject-matter, but also of avoiding sculpture being‘stuck up against the building in such a way that you can’t see it from all sides’.14 Such sculpture entered a type of ornamentalvassalage that Moore particularly loathed.Brown was obliged to accept Moore’s wish.15 Pei redesigned

the pedestal as a triangular promontory jutting out from the terrace. Shortly after, Pei sent Moore drawings of the redesignedplinth, now named the ‘Henry Moore Sculpture Platform’(Fig.45), reassuring Moore that ‘while the base is still part of thebuilding, the sculpture on the other hand is definitely liberatedfrom it’.16 Moore’s doubts were assuaged by the triangularpedestal, and in April 1975 he wrote proposing the sculptureSpindle piece (Fig.46). ‘From my memory of the site and its

6 J. Carter Brown to Henry Moore, 7th May 1973, NGA: E.B. Art – MOORESpindle Piece (1972–12/1975) (cited hereafter as NGA1). Informal discussions hadbegun in 1972, and two of Moore’s dealers attempted to intercede. Kurt Delbancohad written in June 1972 that Moore would consider contributing a ‘new mon -umental vertical sculpture’; Kurt Delbanco to John Bullard, 28th June 1972, NGA1;David Scott replied that discussions were ‘premature’ and that there were ‘severalalternatives we must explore first’; David Scott to Kurt Delbanco, 18th July 1972,NGA1. On 1st March 1973 Harry Brooks of Wildenstein & Co., New York, wroteto Charles Parkhurst, the Assistant Director of NGA, sending photographs of sixmonumental works ‘which Henry Moore proposes’. These were Totem head (1968);Reclining figure: leg arch (1969); Reclining figure (1969–70); Reclining connected forms

(1969); Two forms (1966–69); and Sheep piece (1972). Harry A. Brooks to CharlesParkhurst, 1st March 1973, NGA Curatorial Files: Moore, Henry. 1978.43.1. KnifeEdge Mirror Two Piece.7 The work can be identified as a model based on a Reclining figure by Moore from1969–70; thanks to Michael Phipps for this information.8 Henry Moore to J. Carter Brown, 23rd May 1973, NGA1.9 I.M. Pei & Partners created the working model of the East Building at three-eighths-inch-to-one-foot; since destroyed.10 Unsigned, undated sheet, ‘Status of Henry Moore Sculpture Project’, NGA:Records of the Office of the Director J. Carter Brown. Building East – Art – Moore(hereafter cited as NGA2).

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45. The‘HenryMooreSculpturePlatform’,East Build-ing, Nation-al Gallery of Art,Washington.(Photo-graph: GregoryVershbow,January2011).

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surrounding architecture, I think it needs a strong and powerfulsculpture, and something with bulk (rather than spatial or “elegant”)’.17 He enclosed photographs of the three-foot-highworking model (dated 1968–69) of which he was in the processof casting a larger version, ‘nearly eleven feet high to know howit works on a bigger scale’ (Fig.44). A larger version still wouldbe needed for the ‘impressive architectural surroundings’ of theEast Building, ‘fifteen or sixteen feet high without its pedestal,which in itself could be three or four feet high, and circular inshape – the extra three feet of height would increase its impact’.He explained to Brown the significance of the ‘points’ motif,which had been explored in a number of previous works, fromThree points (1939), to Two piece reclining figure: points (1969–70).But where the points in these earlier works were directedinwards, Moore explained, ‘here in the spindle piece the pointsmove outwards, and in my mind suggest the hub of a wheel’.He extended his pitch with a more literal explanation, making aconnection between the forms of the sculpture and the idea ofWashington as ‘the hub of the world’. ‘Sometimes people needa literary reason as a start to look more favourably on sculpture’,he added.18Brown and Pei responded positively to Moore’s proposal,

although both echoed Moore’s concern about the scale of theexisting version – at eleven feet high, it would probably be toosmall for the setting. When Brown visited Much Hadham during the summer to view the working model for Spindle piece(Fig.47), Moore agreed that a larger model would be necessary,

11 See R.B.K. McLanathan: East Building, National Gallery of Art. A profile, Washing-ton 1978, pp.25–47.12 R. Berthoud: The Life of Henry Moore, London and Boston 1987, p.152.13 E. Pound: Gaudier-Brzeska. A Memoir, London 1916 (1st ed.), repr. 1970, p.96.14 ‘Henry Moore Looks Ahead to Lincoln Center’, The Performing Arts (13th December 1962), unpaginated.15 ‘Your vision of a truly monumental work of sculpture in front of our Penn sylvaniaAvenue façade is an exciting concept. Of course, it is on a grander scale than we hadanticipated in making our budgetary provisions for your work, but the all-importantthing is the sculpture itself. We’ll have to try to work out the means to fit the goal’;J. Carter Brown to Henry Moore, 12th June 1974, NGA1.

16 I.M. Pei to Henry Moore, 18th June 1974, NGA1.17 Henry Moore to J. Carter Brown, 10th April 1975, NGA1.18 Ibid.19 J. Carter Brown, ‘Memorandum of Conversation’, 25th June 1975, NGA2.20 Similar perhaps to Moore’s walk-through sculpture The arch (1963), which Pei hadcommissioned for the plaza outside his Cleo Rogers Memorial Library, Columbus IN.21 On Brown’s suggestion that he produce a unique work, Moore restated his viewson being independent from the site-specific demands of a commission. Sculpture, he told Brown, ‘should look well in a variety of installations, just as a person revealsdifferent aspects of himself in different situations’; letter cited at note 17 above.22 Brown, op. cit. (note 19).

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46. Plasticine model of Spindle piece positioned on the model of the East Building, 2nd/3rdJune 1975. (National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gallery Archives).

47. Photographs of J. Carter Brown, National Gallery of Art Director1969–92, and Henry Moore at Moore’s studio at Perry Green, 23rd September 1976. (National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gallery Archives;photographs courtesy of Paul Matisse).

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but was concerned that it might become too caught up with thearchitecture: ‘He felt the one problem to be avoided was that ofhaving architectural elements cut the piece visually in some way.Therefore, he felt the limiting factor was having it so high that asone got near it, the soffit would impinge’.19 Pei, for his part,thought that the sculpture ‘could not be too big’, and was clear-ly more interested in a monumental, essentially architecturalform, rather than a sculpture that might bear a physical relation-ship to viewers.20 Photographs show a plasticine model of Spindle piece placed on the ‘Sculpture Platform’ (Fig.46).In spite of the possibility of altering the scale, there was grow-

ing unease about the choice of sculpture.21 In a memorandum ofhis visit Brown noted that Moore had been ‘willing to concedethat [the sculpture] must be correct in scale, material, texture,placement, and general mass and form’. Brown’s concern withSpindle piece seems to have touched on all these variables – but hewas particularly uncomfortable with the pointed forms. Herecorded that in his conversation with Moore he had ‘let dropthat the last thing we wanted is to have some newspaper man talkabout Pinocchio’.22The eleven-foot-high bronze Spindle piece was nevertheless

shipped, leaving Southampton on 28th March 1976. Moore him-self arrived in Washington a couple of weeks later. He had sentplans for the construction of a circular pedestal, to be placed onthe existing ‘Henry Moore Sculpture Platform’, ready to receiveSpindle piece. The sculpture, however, never arrived. On seeingthe building semi-complete, it seems that Moore simply decided

against the Pennsylvania Avenue façade, owing to the lack of sun-light it received, and stated instead his wish to place a differentwork at the main Fourth Street entrance to the East Building.23The commissioning process for a work by Dubuffet for this spothad commenced, but the work Dubuffet had suggested, Welcomeparade, was, in Brown’s eyes at least, not entirely suitable.24Moore’s suggestion therefore presented them with a double solution – to the problem of the Dubuffet commission, and thelocation of the Moore sculpture. In any case, it was impossible forBrown and Pei not to agree: ‘In front of the maestro you don’tsay, “No, you’re not going to have that’”, the curator David Scottlater noted.25 Spindle piece bypassed Washington and ended itslong journey in Raleigh, where Gordon Hanes had purchased itby pre-arrangement for the North Carolina Museum of Art.26Following his dramatic intervention in Washington, Moore

travelled to Dallas to inspect the plaza outside Pei’s Civic Hall,for which the architect wanted to commission another workfrom the artist. On his return to England,Moore wrote immedi-ately to Pei and Brown sending two colour transparencies ofalternative works for the East Building,27 Three piece vertebrae,which became Pei’s ‘Dallas Piece’, and Knife edge two piece(1962–65), a version of which had by that time been placed out-side the Houses of Parliament in London (Fig.48).28 Brown sawimmediately that Knife edge solved the problem not only of theplacement but also of shape – given a few adjustments here andthere. He wrote immediately to Moore that Knife edge was theright choice, but could be ‘perhaps modified sufficiently to make

it a unique piece’, and outlined his vision of a ‘golden formbathed in the level rays of the sun [. . .] what with the scale andprominence of that location, tied to an institution of estheticpurpose, we may be on to something very major’.29Moore’s choice of the sculptures may in fact have been based

on a conversation with Pei in Dallas; the architect was later toclaim that he had in fact chosen Knife edge two piece on the basisof a strong identity between the sculpture and his building, acoincidence of the ‘knife edge’ motif. ‘I secretly wished we couldhave the Knife Edge because I thought it was appropriate. But Idon’t think even Mr Moore knew that. You see, the buildingswere already designed before we choose Moore [sic], so when Iwent through Moore’s entire catalogue and I saw Knife Edge, Iliked the name of it. It somehow seemed to be correct. MaybeCarter knows, but I don’t think [so]. I never confided to anyoneabout the reason why I chose Knife Edge over the other piece’.30The ‘knife edge’ of Moore’s piece clearly mirrors the ‘knife edge’of the west façade of Pei’s building, the nineteen-degree angle onthe corner of the study building triangle. Yet the motif may also be taken as the basis for the sculptural

independence of Knife edge mirror from architecture, a formal idea that Moore had developed throughout his career. DavidSylvester traced the ‘knife edge’ motif back to certain carvings inalabaster, ironstone and slate of around 1930 that incorporatevery thin sections, and in general to works that were inspired by the thin structures of shells and bones.31 Developed in hismonumental post-War works, however, the motif is cut loosefrom nature and takes on an independent formal dynamic.Although it is the principal subject of the 1961 Standing figure:knife-edge, the sense of a thin, resilient structure is given withmore power in the Lincoln Center Reclining figure (1962–65),where the ‘torso’ part is taken to an extreme thinness at the pivotal part of the ‘waist’. Knife edge two piece shows the motif inan even more dramatic fashion, indicating movement and theaction of cutting.32 Indeed, the subject of the East Building Knifeedge mirror is the combination of the ‘knife edge’, and the sliced,or ‘mirror’ face of the larger part. The ‘slice’ may be traced as acognate motif in Moore’s work, and ultimately derives fromBrancusi’s use of a similar format in works such as Torso of a youngman (1924; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Wash-ington), where the slice emphasises the imagined bodily solidityof an otherwise hollow sculpture. In Moore’s case the ‘slice’combined with the ‘knife edge’ suggests an organic form sprungspontaneously from inorganic matter – an apt metaphor for thesculptural autonomy Moore had always desired.The ‘mirror’ of the title seems not to have originally referred

to the sliced surface, however, but to the fact that the forms ofthe East Building sculpture were obtained by reversing, or mir-roring those of the London Knife edge two piece. The suggestion

23 Alexander Liberman’s Adam (1970), a large and geometric steel work, was lent bythe Storm King Art Center to occupy the platform for the opening of the building.It has since remained largely empty.24 On 2nd July 1974 Brown had viewed a mock-up of Welcome parade in an abandoned munitions factory in the Bois de Vincennes used by Dubuffet for various projects. Brown had reservations about the expressions of the figures: ‘Icommented on the fact that the expressions on some of his people seemed ratheranguished than joyful, and he leaned heavily on the fact that his art had a high seri-ousness, bordering on the tragic. I did try to indicate that part of the fun was thesense of welcome, and that one did not want figures that were forbidding to thevisitor’. Brown was also concerned about the longevity of the ‘plastic technologies’Dubuffet was proposing as the construction material; J. Carter Brown, ‘Memoran-dum to D.W. Scott’ (dictated while abroad, tapes received and transcribed 5th July

1974); NGA, Records of the Office of the Director J. Carter Brown. Building East– Art – Dubuffet.25 NGA, Oral History Program, interview with David Scott, conducted by A.G.Ritchie, 26th August 1993, p.42. 26 J. Carter Brown, ‘Memorandum for the File’, 19th April 1976, NGA1. Hanes, amember of the Collectors Committee formed by Brown to fund the purchase of contemporary art, had offered to pay for transportation of the sculpture, if it was then made available for purchase by the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh;Gordon Hanes to Henry Moore, 10th November 1975, NGA1.27 Henry Moore to I.M. Pei, 22nd April 1976; NGA: E.B. – MOORE Two EdgeKnife Piece [sic] (April 1976–November 1977) (cited hereafter as NGA3). Moore hadwritten to Brown the previous day to inform him of the proposal; Henry Moore toJ. Carter Brown, 21st April 1976, NGA3.

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48. Knife edge two piece, by Henry Moore. 1962–65. Bronze, 275 cm. high. (Editionof 3, this version: presented by the Contemporary Art Society to the City of West-minster, London; reproduced by permission of the Henry Moore Foundation,Much Hadham).

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to invert the original came, so it seems, also from Pei.33 Scalemodels of both options, using miniature photographs and amaquette on the architectural model, show the differing aspectsof the sculpture in reversed and ‘normal’ positions (Figs.49 and50). Brown was initially in agreement with David Scott that the‘unreversed’ position was better, but was soon convinced byPei’s notion that the ‘placement on the terrace (towards the after-noon light and sun)’ and also the open aspect that the sculpturewould present on approach from the north, as if channelling vis-itors in, made the ‘reversed’ position preferable.34Moore reported to Brown in December 1976 that he had

begun the ‘mirror-image’ of Knife edge two piece ‘in the workingmodel size, that is about 2 feet 4 inches long, and one foot eightinches high, – this is the size of the two pieces arranged togeth-er (and this is a practical size for me to work from when I cometo do the full-size sculpture)’.35 He used Polystyrene (known inAmerica as Styrofoam) as a modelling material to create the newmaquette, a plaster cast of which was made and sent to theGallery at the beginning of the following year (Fig.51). Poly-styrene, to which Moore had been introduced by a former assistant, Derek Howarth, in the late 1960s, is much quicker andeasier to shape than plaster, is significantly lighter and, on a largescale, self-supporting. It is also easy to cut, using either a hotwire or worked into with a wire brush. Moore used it not onlyfor the working model but also for the full-scale ‘original’ fromwhich the final work was cast, thus expediting significantly theprocess of enlargement, a task he left to his assistants, MichaelMuller and Malcolm Woodward, while he travelled to Italy for

his annual period of stone carving at Forte dei Marmi. The various changes to the commission meant that Moore was farbehind schedule, meaning there would be no time for the traditional method of enlargement, involving a laborious build-up of wood, plaster and scrim.36 The working model for Knifeedge mirror was divided into lateral sections, providing a contourthat was used to cut enlarged sections from the Polystyrene,

28 It was bought by the Contemporary Art Society and donated to the City ofWestminster.29 J. Carter Brown to Henry Moore, 26th April 1976, NGA3.30 NGA, Oral History Program, interview with I.M. Pei, conducted by A.G.Ritchie, 22nd February 1993, pp.38–39.31 D. Sylvester: Henry Moore, London 1968, p.119.32 In a 1967 article the work is captioned as Knife-edge sliding piece; A. Elsen: ‘TheNew Freedom of Henry Moore’, Art International 7 (September 1967), pp.42–45. 33 Brown wrote a memo to David Scott to say that Moore ‘had agreed to considerreversing KNIFE EDGE, to follow I.M.’s desire’; J. Carter Brown to David Scott,3rd August 1976, NGA3.34 David Scott to J. Carter Brown, 9th September 1976; Brown to Scott, memo, 11th

October 1976; and Brown to Scott, 13th September 1976, NGA3. Similarly, Moorehad left to I.M. Pei the orientation of The arch outside the Cleo Rogers MemorialLibrary, Colombus.35 Henry Moore to J. Carter Brown, 17th December 1976, NGA3.36 It was for this reason that Moore chose not to use his preferred foundry: Noack of Berlin, but rather the Morris Singer Foundry in Basingstoke, England, who werealso casting Three piece vertebrae for Dallas. The choice saved both money and shippingtime, and allowed close supervision of the work: ‘The English foundry has much less experience in doing large bronzes and I, and my boys, will need to spend muchmore time working at the English foundry to help them in producing as highly finished surface as I desire!’. Henry Moore to I.M. Pei, 26th October 1976, HenryMoore Foundation Archive, Much Hadham.

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49. East Building model with mock-up of Knife edge two piece, June 1976. (NationalGallery of Art, Washington, Gallery Archives).

50. East Building model with mock-up of Knife edge two piece, reversed, c.Septem-ber 1976. (National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gallery Archives).

51. Henry Moore with maquette for Knife edge two piece at his studio in Much Had-ham. (National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gallery Archives).

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52. Henry Moore at the installation of Knife edge two piece at the East Building, 10thto 13th May 1978. (National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gallery Archives; photo-graph by Jose Naranjo, Bill Sumits).

which were then assembled to form an approximate full-scalemodel for finishing (Fig.53). Where the old method of plasterbuild-up using a stick and rag armature, used for example on the Lincoln Center Reclining figure, encouraged a textured surface, it was impossible with Polystyrene to achieve the samedepth of surface texture, even when plaster was added to thePolystyrene model. Although the Polystyrene full-scale modelswere in many cases only roughly approximate, and were cast by an outside firm before being returned to Moore’s studio forfinishing, in many cases the smooth surface of the cast was left untouched.37

When Brown saw the reversed maquette in the followingFebruary (after it had been accepted by the Acquisitions Committee), this was exactly the point he raised, writing toMoore: ‘Our one hope is that in working out the final sculpture,it will bear the articulation of surface that your work so often has, giving the sense of your hand having been involved in thefinishing of the final piece, and adding visual interest to the surface, particularly on the back . . .’.38 Brown had made a similar point after seeing the version of Knife edge two piece out-side the Houses of Parliament, writing to Moore that he hadadmired the ‘surface work showing your hand’, although it was ‘less volumetric’ than he had expected.39 The surface of theLondon Knife edge two piece is indeed highly articulated, showingthe scrapings and scorings that also characterised the LincolnCentre reclining figure, made shortly before.40 By contrast, the surface of Knife edge mirror is entirely smooth and unarticulated,and may be compared in this respect with a number of worksfrom the 1960s, such as Pointed torso and Architectural project, both of 1969. Such works moved away from the markings andarticulations that, during the 1950s, may be compared to the ‘suf-fering surfaces’ of Brutalist sculpture, and that in the 1960s morereadily provoked comparisons with natural formations, rocks andlandscape features. Moore clearly saw that the ‘visual interest’ ofsuch surface markings would be in conflict with the monumen-tal scale of Knife edge mirror, and would not in any case be visiblefrom the distance necessary to view the work as a whole. Enlargement, the third transformation of the work (alongside

mirroring and smoothing) – has proved perhaps the most con-troversial. On sending images to Pei of Knife edge and Vertebrae,Moore had suggested that he could ‘choose which transparencyto blow up to any size, to experiment with and to try out, as suggested, on the building’.41 At over twenty-three feet, the final version is on an architectural scale comparable with Vertebrae, designed to be walked through and around. It is one ofMoore’s largest sculptures. It was precisely this ‘indiscriminate’enlargement of models that Barbara Rose had criticised a fewyears earlier. The ‘pernicious’ notion of scale-as-content wasexemplified for Rose by Moore’s Lincoln Center Reclining figure, ‘lounging like a great melancholy behemoth in the plaza of Lincoln Center [. . .] a perfect example of a work executed onan inappropriate scale’.42Rose’s comments on the Lincoln Center Reclining figure are, to

an extent, justifiable; yet by the time Moore came to make Knifeedge mirror, ten years later, the problem of scale was greatlyresolved. Rather than attempt to mediate between architectureand the human body, the monumental scale of the figure signifies a ‘return’ to architecture, such that the sculpture is onlyviewable as a whole from a significant distance, and close to can

37 The firm was Norman & Raymond of Clapham. My thanks to James Cooper andMichael Phipps for this information.38 J. Carter Brown to Henry Moore, 3rd February 1977, NGA3.39 J. Carter Brown to Henry Moore, 26th July 1976, NGA3.40 Photographs in the Moore Archive show that the transparent hanger-like studiobuilt to house the plaster model for the Lincoln Center Reclining figure was sub -sequently used for Knife edge two piece, Atom piece and The archer.41 Henry Moore to I.M. Pei, 22nd April 1976, NGA3.42 See B. Rose: ‘Blowup: The Problem of Scale in Sculpture’, Art in America 56 (July 1968), pp.80–91. By today’s standards, Knife edge mirror may not seem partic -ularly large; James Meyer has described the increasingly monumental appearance ofpost-War sculpture dominated by sheer size, rather than related to the body of the

viewer; J. Meyer: ‘No More Scale’, Artforum (Summer 2004), pp.221–28.43 Cf. R. Morris: ‘Notes on Sculpture Part 2’, ibid. 2 (October 1966), pp.20–23.44 H. Read: The Art of Sculpture. The A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 1954,National Gallery of Art, Washington, New York 1956, p.5.45 Competing demands from the point of view of sculpture and architecture extendeven to the naming of the work; just before the sculpture arrived in Washington,Carter Brown circulated a memo distinguishing between the final work and two maquettes, one plaster, one bronze, that the Gallery had also acquired. ‘The Director has ruled that of the two new Henry Moore sculptures, the large plaza piecewill be called “Knife Edge Mirror Two Piece” and (to differentiate it) the small onewill be called “Two Piece Mirror Knife Edge’”. ‘Memorandum to the ExecutiveOfficers, DEX, Registrar and DCT, DID’, 20th March 1978, NGA: E.B. –

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only be experienced (or at least was originally intended to be), asa ‘walk-through’ structure (Fig.52). Questions of scale and bodily experience were central to

minimalist definitions of sculpture current in North America asMoore’s works were appearing in museums and public spacesaround the continent. Works such as Mirror knife edge may beread in apposition to these new definitions of sculpture, basedon phenomenological experience and bodily identification.Robert Morris’s definition of sculpture as existing somewherebetween the intimacy of an ornament and the anonymity of amonument, is one of the most frequently cited definitions ofthe somatic basis of minimalist sculpture, and clearly relates to the problems of scale and placement that had defined the commissioning of Knife edge mirror.43 Intriguingly, it seemsthat Morris derived this definition from Herbert Read, one of Moore’s firmest supporters, in Read’s Mellon lectures onsculpture given in 1954 in Washington, particularly the firstlecture, ‘The Monument and the Amulet’. But where Morrissaw sculpture as a negation of the ornament and the mon -ument, Read saw sculpture as having its origins in the twoextremes, and thus ‘as a method of creating an object with theindependence of the amulet and the effect of the monument’.44Read’s definition is an apt summary of the ‘knife edge’ onwhich Moore’s East Building sculpture itself stands: caught at amid-point between architectural adornment and sculpturalindependence (Fig.54).45The installation46 and subsequent life of Knife edge mirror are

subjects for further investigation, and would include an account

both of the changing views of the sculpture and the controver-sies surrounding its maintenance and restoration.47 In fact, as wehave seen, these controversies and conflicting interpretationswere already formative during its commissioning and fabrication.Over thirty years later this history can be assessed, and a ‘criticalevaluation and interpretation’ of Moore’s late works, includingtheir reception in North America, becomes possible.No more telling account could be cited in this respect than

that given by the meçene of the East Building, Paul Mellon, in aninterview conducted just over a decade after the opening. ‘Ithink my father, if he walked into the East Building today, wouldbe horrified! And he would have thought he was in a madhouse!And I think that’s true of my sister. To a certain extent it’s trueof me too. There are certain things, especially the hugeness ofthings. Because I think of art, and I think probably my father did,and my sister did, and a lot of people do, as things that you wantto have about you in a house. So that once things become thingsthat are done purely for the public, great canvases, great hugestatues, and so forth [. . .] I suppose what I’m saying is I havenothing against it, and I suppose I have the feeling that these arethings that two generations from now are going to decide, andit’s not for me to decide’.48 ‘Two generations’ later the ‘hugenessof things’ has become less an aesthetic shock than a focus for historic description. For Mirror knife edge, as we have seen, thisinvolves not only the means of enlargement and fabrication, andthe critical context of minimalism, but also the new relationshipbetween abstract sculpture and monumental architecture thatevolved during the 1960s.

MOORE Two Edge Knife Piece [sic] (November 1977–December 1981) (hereaftercited as NGA4). As noted above, the work is listed in Moore’s catalogue raisonné notas ‘Knife Edge Mirror’, but ‘Mirror Knife Edge’.46 The two pieces travelled separately, the smaller arriving on 28th March, the larger, delayed by a dock strike at Southampton, on 9th May. Moore arrived two dayslater to supervise the installation. He was quoted in the local newspaper: ‘I’m concerned that at some stages of the day, the whole sculpture will get the sun [. . .]There will always be some time when some will be in shadow at the top. That’s allright, though I wouldn’t want to take a photograph of it then. If a sculpture is fixed,unturnable, and this piece is so big that it is unturnable there will always be some time that is preferable to others. All I want is that the whole sun will get the sculpture at some point’; B. Weintraub: ‘Architect, artist, pianist, and oh, yes, 15 tons

of sculpture’, Washington Star (12th May 1978), p.8.47 The fate of the Polystyrene full-scale model is also of interest. Whereas Moore’splaster models are displayed as works of art, the Polystyrene enlargements were gen-erally considered expendable, existing as means to an end. A letter from the Directorof the shipping company to Brown shows that the Polystyrene models were availableto the packers ‘so that the major part of the packing work can be completed beforethe sculpture is available to us’; Michael K. Scott, Director, Pitte Scott Ltd., Fine ArtPackers and Shippers, to J. Carter Brown, 16th January 1978, NGA4. Photographsand film footage of the packing cases being opened in Washington suggest that thePolystyrene model had in fact been cut up and used as packing material.48 NGA, Oral History Program, interviews with Paul Mellon, conducted by RobertBowen, 26th and 27th July and 10th November 1988, pp.74–75.

the burlington magazine • cli i I • april 2011 255

54. View of Knife edge two piece against the façade of East Building, by HenryMoore. 1976–78. Bronze, 5.345 by 7.211 by 3.631 m. (National Gallery of Art,Washington; photograph: Gregory Vershbow, January 2011).

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53. Plaster maquette of Knife edge two piece showing lateral sections for enlargementin Polystyrene. (Reproduced by permission of the Henry Moore Foundation,Much Hadham).