sign in sign up
<<
Home , Henry Moore, Henry Moore Foundation, Spindle Piece

Henry Moore’s ‘Knife edge mirror two piece’, at the of Art, Washington by JOHN-PAUL STONARD

STANDING AT THE ENTRANCE to the East Building of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, ’s Knife edge mirror two piece (1976–78; Fig.43) 1 is one of the artist’s best- known works in North America. It keeps company in this respect with the Lincoln Center Reclining figure (1962–65) in New York and Three forms vertebrae (1978–79) outside the Civic Hall in Dallas, as well as Atom piece (1964–66), commemorating the site of the first nuclear chain reaction in , now renamed Nuclear energy . The latter is one of the few to have escaped the fate of Moore’s ‘late-period’ works, defined by Peter Fuller over two decades ago, as having received ‘very little critical evaluation or interpretation’, a state of affairs that holds 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 sculptures lacking the vivid historical context of the pre-War carvings and wartime Shelter drawings. 3 Yet it was only after 1960 that Moore was to create some of the most intriguing works of his career, developing ideas that had first been broached in the 1930s. Powerful, complex abstract forms, experimentation with materials and scale, as well as a new dynamic relationship with architecture, define the work of this period. Moreover, it was primarily in North America that Moore found the atmosphere in which this new phase could unfold. 4 Recent research on Moore has vigorously challenged the hagiography that for so long encumbered writing on his work, but has not so far countered the bias towards the first four decades of his working life. 5 This article aims to illuminate the commission - 43. Knife edge mirror two piece , by Henry Moore. 1976 –78. Bronze, 535 by 721 by ing and fabrication of Knife edge mirror and to suggest some ways 363 cm. (National Gallery of Art, Washington, gift of the Morris and Gwendolyn in which it epitomises Moore’s late period, and what might Caffritz Foundation, 1978. Photograph: Gregory Vershbow, January 2011). even 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 to Director of the National Gallery of Art, J. Carter Brown, who which the forms of Knife edge mirror were developed in concert was the ‘third man’ in the commissioning process, wrote to with I.M. Pei, the architect of the East Building. The then Moore 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 Essays , 2003, pp.221–41; C. Stephens: ‘Henry Moore’s “Atom Piece”: The for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1930s generation comes of age’, in Beckett and Russell, op. cit ., pp.243–56; and and was completed while the author was Ailsa Mellon Bruce Senior Fellow at P. Fuller: Henry Moore , London 1993, p.45. For a recent publication that virtually CASVA. Many thanks are due to friends and colleagues at CASVA for their omits any account of Moore’s work in North America, see C. Lichtenstern: Henry comments. Thanks also for their assistance to James Cooper, Penelope Curtis, Moore. Work – Theory – Impact , London 2008. Maygene Daniels, Amanda Douberley, Anita Feldman, Valerie Fletcher, Jean 3 One writer has recently described the ‘Beaux-Arts monumentality’ of these Henry, Derek Howarth, Dorothy Kosinski, Paul Matisse, James Meyer, Michael works, revealing the ‘establishment – rather than the avant-garde nature of his late Parke-Taylor, Michael Phipps, Shelley Sturman, Katy May, Gregory Vershbow production’; see C. Pearson: Designing UNESCO. Art, Architecture and International and Anne Wagner. Throughout these notes the National Gallery of Art, Washing - Politics at Mid-Century , Farnham 2010, p.264; and C. Stephens, ed.: exh. cat. Henry ton, is cited as NGA. This article is for Malcolm Clendenin (1964 –2011) and his Moore , London () and Toronto () 2010, esp. p.17. friends at CASVA. 4 H. Seldis: Henry Moore in America , New York 1973, remains the best account of 1 Catalogued as Mirror knife edge in A. Bowness, ed.: Henry Moore. Complete , Moore’s presence in North America, and includes important primary material. Such Volume 5, 1974–1980 , London 1983, no.714. The title Knife edge mirror used through - an account should be set alongside the commissions Moore received from German out this article is an abbreviation of that given by the NGA: Knife edge mirror two piece . museums and municipalities, for which, see Lichtenstern, op. cit. (note 2). 2 For Nuclear energy , see I.A. Boal: ‘Ground zero: Henry Moore’s “Atom Piece” at 5 See, for example, Beckett and Russell, op. cit. (note 2); A. Wagner: Mother Stone , the ’, in J. Beckett and F. Russell, eds.: Henry Moore. Critical New Haven and London 2005; and Stephens, op. cit. (note 3).

the burlington magazine • cliiI • april 2011 249 HENRY MOORE’S ‘KNIFE EDGE MIRROR TWO PIECE’

45. The ‘Henry Moore Sculpture Platform’, East Build - ing, Nation - al Gallery of Art, Washington. (Photo - graph: Gregory Vershbow, 44. Large , by Henry Moore. 1974 (first cast in 1968). Bronze, 335 cm. January high. (North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh). 2011).

Pennsylvania façade’ of the East Building. 6 He emphasised the his involvement with the constructivist milieu of the 1930s, importance of Pennsylvania Avenue as the ‘great symbolic way when collaborations were encouraged, which, as his biographer joining the White House with the Capitol and the Supreme Roger Berthoud has noted, brought out a ‘competitive feeling Court’, and added that Pei had custom-designed a pedestal at which marked his attitude to architects and their products for the end of a long sculpture pool on the north side of the build - much of his life’. 12 The origins of this were certainly in Moore’s ing. A mock-up of a small bronze by Moore had already been self-conception as an artist who had inherited the task of forging tried on the architectural model, as photographs in the Gallery sculpture as an independent art from those such as Gaudier- archive demonstrate. 7 Brzeska, Brancusi and Epstein at a time when, as Ezra Pound Moore accepted the commission immediately. 8 He was once put it, most sculptors were ‘engaged wholly in making visited by Brown at his home and studio in Perry Green, Much gas-fittings and ornaments for electric light globes . . .’. 13 As Hadham, that summer but it was not until May the next year Moore later made clear when working on the Reclining figure for (1974) that he travelled to Washington to view the site, still the Lincoln Center, this was not only a matter of retaining a free under construction, and also to view the large architectural choice of subject-matter, but also of avoiding sculpture being model of the East Building. 9 It was then that Moore suggested a ‘stuck up against the building in such a way that you can’t see crucial change to the siting of the sculpture, moving it north it from all sides’. 14 Such sculpture entered a type of ornamental of the building line, essentially sliding Pei’s pedestal out from the vassalage that Moore particularly loathed. terrace. 10 Moore’s rationale was clear: he did not want the sculp - Brown was obliged to accept Moore’s wish. 15 Pei redesigned ture to be subservient to the building, to be mere decoration. He the pedestal as a triangular promontory jutting out from the was perhaps more mindful of this condition than the other artists terrace. Shortly after, Pei sent Moore drawings of the redesigned commissioned to make works for the new building, including plinth, now named the ‘Henry Moore Sculpture Platform’ Alexander Calder, , , David Smith (Fig.45), reassuring Moore that ‘while the base is still part of the and James Rosati, all of whom contributed sculptures, Joan Miró building, the sculpture on the other hand is definitely liberated and Hans Arp, who were represented by tapestries, and Robert from it’. 16 Moore’s doubts were assuaged by the triangular Motherwell, who contributed a large painting. 11 Moore’s aver - pedestal, and in April 1975 he wrote proposing the sculpture sion to producing ‘architectural sculpture’ can be traced back to Spindle 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 – MOORE (1969); Two forms (1966 –69); and Sheep piece (1972). Harry A. Brooks to Charles Spindle Piece (1972 –12/1975) (cited hereafter as NGA1). Informal discussions had Parkhurst, 1st March 1973, NGA Curatorial Files: Moore, Henry. 1978.43.1. Knife begun in 1972, and two of Moore’s dealers attempted to intercede. Kurt Delbanco Edge Mirror Two Piece. had written in June 1972 that Moore would consider contributing a ‘new mon - 7 The work can be identified as a model based on a Reclining figure by Moore from umental vertical sculpture’; Kurt Delbanco to John Bullard, 28th June 1972, NGA1; 1969–70; thanks to Michael Phipps for this information. David Scott replied that discussions were ‘premature’ and that there were ‘several 8 Henry Moore to J. Carter Brown, 23rd May 1973, NGA1. alternatives we must explore first’; David Scott to Kurt Delbanco, 18th July 1972, 9 I.M. Pei & Partners created the working model of the East Building at NGA1. On 1st March 1973 Harry Brooks of Wildenstein & Co., New York, wrote three-eighths-inch-to-one-foot; since destroyed. to Charles Parkhurst, the Assistant Director of NGA, sending photographs of six 10 Unsigned, undated sheet, ‘Status of Henry Moore Sculpture Project’, NGA: monumental works ‘which Henry Moore proposes’. These were Totem head (1968); Records of the Office of the Director J. Carter Brown. Building East – Art – Moore Reclining figure: leg arch (1969); Reclining figure (1969 –70); Reclining connected forms (hereafter cited as NGA2).

250 april 2011 • cliiI • the burlington magazine HENRY MOORE’S ‘KNIFE EDGE MIRROR TWO PIECE’

46. Plasticine model of Spindle piece positioned on the model of the East Building, 2nd/3rd 47. Photographs of J. Carter Brown, National Gallery of Art Director June 1975. (National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gallery Archives). 1969 –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). surrounding architecture, I think it needs a strong and powerful but was concerned that it might become too caught up with the sculpture, and something with bulk (rather than spatial or architecture: ‘He felt the one problem to be avoided was that of “elegant”)’. 17 He enclosed photographs of the three-foot-high having architectural elements cut the piece visually in some way. working model (dated 1968–69) of which he was in the process Therefore, he felt the limiting factor was having it so high that as of casting a larger version, ‘nearly eleven feet high to know how one got near it, the soffit would impinge’. 19 Pei, for his part, it works on a bigger scale’ (Fig.44). A larger version still would thought that the sculpture ‘could not be too big’, and was clear - be needed for the ‘impressive architectural surroundings’ of the ly more interested in a monumental, essentially architectural East Building, ‘fifteen or sixteen feet high without its pedestal, form, rather than a sculpture that might bear a physical relation - which in itself could be three or four feet high, and circular in ship to viewers. 20 Photographs show a plasticine model of shape – the extra three feet of height would increase its impact’. Spindle piece placed on the ‘Sculpture Platform’ (Fig.46). He explained to Brown the significance of the ‘points’ motif, In spite of the possibility of altering the scale, there was grow - which had been explored in a number of previous works, from ing unease about the choice of sculpture. 21 In a memorandum of Three points (1939), to Two piece reclining figure: points (1969 –70). his visit Brown noted that Moore had been ‘willing to concede But where the points in these earlier works were directed that [the sculpture] must be correct in scale, material, texture, inwards, Moore explained, ‘here in the spindle piece the points placement, and general mass and form’. Brown’s concern with move outwards, and in my mind suggest the hub of a wheel’. Spindle piece seems to have touched on all these variables – but he He extended his pitch with a more literal explanation, making a was particularly uncomfortable with the pointed forms. He connection between the forms of the sculpture and the idea of recorded that in his conversation with Moore he had ‘let drop Washington as ‘the hub of the world’. ‘Sometimes people need that the last thing we wanted is to have some newspaper man talk a literary reason as a start to look more favourably on sculpture’, about Pinocchio’. 22 he added. 18 The eleven-foot-high bronze Spindle piece was nevertheless Brown and Pei responded positively to Moore’s proposal, shipped, leaving Southampton on 28th March 1976. Moore him - although both echoed Moore’s concern about the scale of the self arrived in Washington a couple of weeks later. He had sent existing version – at eleven feet high, it would probably be too plans for the construction of a circular pedestal, to be placed on small for the setting. When Brown visited the existing ‘Henry Moore Sculpture Platform’, ready to receive during the summer to view the working model for Spindle piece Spindle piece . The sculpture, however, never arrived. On seeing (Fig.47), Moore agreed that a larger model would be necessary, the building semi-complete, it seems that Moore simply decided

11 See R.B.K. McLanathan: East Building, National Gallery of Art. A profile , Washing - 16 I.M. Pei to Henry Moore, 18th June 1974, NGA1. ton 1978, pp.25–47. 17 Henry Moore to J. Carter Brown, 10th April 1975, NGA1. 12 R. Berthoud: The Life of Henry Moore , London and Boston 1987, p.152. 18 Ibid . 13 E. Pound: Gaudier-Brzeska. A Memoir , London 1916 (1st ed.), repr. 1970, p.96. 19 J. Carter Brown, ‘Memorandum of Conversation’, 25th June 1975, NGA2. 14 ‘Henry Moore Looks Ahead to Lincoln Center’, The Performing Arts (13th 20 Similar perhaps to Moore’s walk-through sculpture The arch (1963), which Pei had December 1962), unpaginated. commissioned for the plaza outside his Cleo Rogers Memorial Library, Columbus IN. 15 ‘Your vision of a truly monumental work of sculpture in front of our Penn sylvania 21 On Brown’s suggestion that he produce a unique work, Moore restated his views Avenue façade is an exciting concept. Of course, it is on a grander scale than we had on being independent from the site-specific demands of a commission. Sculpture, anticipated in making our budgetary provisions for your work, but the all-important he told Brown, ‘should look well in a variety of installations, just as a person reveals thing is the sculpture itself. We’ll have to try to work out the means to fit the goal’; different aspects of himself in different situations’; letter cited at note 17 above. J. Carter Brown to Henry Moore, 12th June 1974, NGA1. 22 Brown, op. cit. (note 19).

the burlington magazine • cliiI • april 2011 251 HENRY MOORE’S ‘KNIFE EDGE MIRROR TWO PIECE’

it a unique piece’, and outlined his vision of a ‘golden form bathed in the level rays of the sun [. . .] what with the scale and prominence of that location, tied to an institution of esthetic purpose, we may be on to something very major’. 29 Moore’s choice of the sculptures may in fact have been based on a conversation with Pei in Dallas; the architect was later to claim that he had in fact chosen Knife edge two piece on the basis of a strong identity between the sculpture and his building, a coincidence of the ‘knife edge’ motif. ‘I secretly wished we could have the Knife Edge because I thought it was appropriate. But I don’t think even Mr Moore knew that. You see, the buildings were already designed before we choose Moore [ sic ], so when I went through Moore’s entire catalogue and I saw Knife Edge , I liked the name of it. It somehow seemed to be correct. Maybe Carter knows, but I don’t think [so]. I never confided to anyone about the reason why I chose Knife Edge over the other piece’. 30 The ‘knife edge’ of Moore’s piece clearly mirrors the ‘knife edge’ 48. Knife edge two piece , by Henry Moore. 1962–65. Bronze, 275 cm. high. (Edition of the west façade of Pei’s building, the nineteen-degree angle on of 3, this version: presented by the Contemporary Art Society to the City of West - minster, London; reproduced by permission of the , the corner of the study building triangle. Much Hadham). 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. David against the Pennsylvania Avenue façade, owing to the lack of sun - Sylvester traced the ‘knife edge’ moti f back to certain carvings in light it received, and stated instead his wish to place a different alabaster, ironstone and slate of around 1930 that incorporate work at the main Fourth Street entrance to the East Building. 23 very thin sections, and in general to works that were inspired The commissioning process for a work by Dubuffet for this spot by the thin structures of shells and bones. 31 Developed in his had commenced, but the work Dubuffet had suggested, Welcome monumental post-War works, however, the motif is cut loose parade , was, in Brown’s eyes at least, not entirely suitable. 24 from nature and takes on an independent formal dynamic. Moore’s suggestion therefore presented them with a double Although it is the principal subject of the 1961 Standing figure: solution – to the problem of the Dubuffet commission, and the knife-edge , the sense of a thin, resilient structure is given with location of the Moore sculpture. In any case, it was impossible for more power in the Lincoln Center Reclining figure (1962–65), Brown and Pei not to agree: ‘In front of the maestro you don’t where the ‘torso’ part is taken to an extreme thinness at the say, “No, you’re not going to have that’”, the curator David Scott pivotal part of the ‘waist’. Knife edge two piece shows the motif in later noted. 25 Spindle piece bypassed Washington and ended its an even more dramatic fashion, indicating movement and the long journey in Raleigh, where Gordon Hanes had purchased it action of cutting. 32 Indeed, the subject of the East Building Knife by pre-arrangement for the North Carolina Museum of Art. 26 edge mirror is the combination of the ‘knife edge’, and the sliced, Following his dramatic intervention in Washington, Moore or ‘mirror’ face of the larger part. The ‘slice’ may be traced as a travelled to Dallas to inspect the plaza outside Pei’s Civic Hall, cognate motif in Moore’s work, and ultimately derives from for which the architect wanted to commission another work Brancusi’s use of a similar format in works such as Torso of a young from the artist. On his return to , Moore wrote immedi - man (1924; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Wash - ately to Pei and Brown sending two colour transparencies of ington), where the slice emphasises the imagined bodily solidity alternative works for the East Building, 27 Three piece vertebrae , of an otherwise hollow sculpture. In Moore’s case the ‘slice’ which became Pei’s ‘Dallas Piece’, and Knife edge two piece combined with the ‘knife edge’ suggests an organic form sprung (1962–65), a version of which had by that time been placed out - spontaneously from inorganic matter – an apt metaphor for the side the Houses of Parliament in London (Fig.48). 28 Brown saw sculptural autonomy Moore had always desired. immediately that Knife edge solved the problem not only of the The ‘mirror’ of the title seems not to have originally referred placement but also of shape – given a few adjustments here and to the sliced surface, however, but to the fact that the forms of there. He wrote immediately to Moore that Knife edge was the the East Building sculpture were obtained by reversing, or mir - right choice, but could be ‘perhaps modified sufficiently to make 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 by 1974); NGA, Records of the Office of the Director J. Carter Brown. Building East the Storm King Art Center to occupy the platform for the opening of the building. – Art – Dubuffet. It has since remained largely empty. 25 NGA, Oral History Program, interview with David Scott, conducted by A.G. 24 On 2nd July 1974 Brown had viewed a mock-up of Welcome parade in an Ritchie, 26th August 1993, p.42. abandoned munitions factory in the Bois de Vincennes used by Dubuffet for 26 J. Carter Brown, ‘Memorandum for the File’, 19th April 1976, NGA1. Hanes, a various projects. Brown had reservations about the expressions of the figures: ‘I member of the Collectors Committee formed by Brown to fund the purchase of commented on the fact that the expressions on some of his people seemed rather contemporary art, had offered to pay for transportation of the sculpture, if it was anguished than joyful, and he leaned heavily on the fact that his art had a high seri - then made available for purchase by the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh; ousness, bordering on the tragic. I did try to indicate that part of the fun was the Gordon Hanes to Henry Moore, 10th November 1975, NGA1. sense of welcome, and that one did not want figures that were forbidding to the 27 Henry Moore to I.M. Pei, 22nd April 1976; NGA: E.B. – MOORE Two Edge visitor’. Brown was also concerned about the longevity of the ‘plastic technologies’ Knife Piece [sic ] (April 1976 –November 1977) (cited hereafter as NGA3). Moore had Dubuffet was proposing as the construction material; J. Carter Brown, ‘Memoran - written to Brown the previous day to inform him of the proposal; Henry Moore to dum to D.W. Scott’ (dictated while abroad, tapes received and transcribed 5th July J. Carter Brown, 21st April 1976, NGA3.

252 april 2011 • cliiI • the burlington magazine HENRY MOORE’S ‘KNIFE EDGE MIRROR TWO PIECE’

49. East Building model with mock-up of Knife edge two piece , June 1976. (National 50. East Building model with mock-up of Knife edge two piece , reversed, c.Septem - Gallery of Art, Washington, Gallery Archives). ber 1976. (National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gallery Archives). to invert the original came, so it seems, also from Pei. 33 Scale models of both options, using miniature photographs and a maquette on the architectural model, show the differing aspects of the sculpture in reversed and ‘normal’ positions (Figs.49 and 50). Brown was initially in agreement with David Scott that the ‘unreversed’ position was better, but was soon convinced by Pei’s notion that the ‘placement on the terrace (towards the after - noon light and sun)’ and also the open aspect that the sculpture would present on approach from the north, as if channelling vis - itors in, made the ‘reversed’ position preferable. 34 Moore reported to Brown in December 1976 that he had begun the ‘mirror-image’ of Knife edge two piece ‘in the working model size, that is about 2 feet 4 inches long, and one foot eight inches 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 come to do the full-size sculpture)’. 35 He used Polystyrene (known in America as Styrofoam) as a modelling material to create the new maquette, a plaster cast of which was made and sent to the 51. Henry Moore with maquette for Knife edge two piece at his studio in Much Had - Gallery at the beginning of the following year (Fig.51). Poly - ham. (National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gallery Archives). styrene, to which Moore had been introduced by a former assistant, Derek Howarth, in the late 1960s, is much quicker and easier to shape than plaster, is significantly lighter and, on a large his annual period of stone carving at Forte dei Marmi. The scale, self-supporting. It is also easy to cut, using either a hot various changes to the commission meant that Moore was far wire or worked into with a wire brush. Moore used it not only behind schedule, meaning there would be no time for the for the working model but also for the full-scale ‘original’ from traditional method of enlargement, involving a laborious build- which the final work was cast, thus expediting significantly the up of wood, plaster and scrim. 36 The working model for Knife process of enlargement, a task he left to his assistants, Michael edge mirror was divided into lateral sections, providing a contour Muller and Malcolm Woodward, while he travelled to Italy for that was used to cut enlarged sections from the Polystyrene,

28 It was bought by the Contemporary Art Society and donated to the City of October 1976; and Brown to Scott, 13th September 1976, NGA3. Similarly, Moore Westminster. had left to I.M. Pei the orientation of The arch outside the Cleo Rogers Memorial 29 J. Carter Brown to Henry Moore, 26th April 1976, NGA3. Library, Colombus. 30 NGA, Oral History Program, interview with I.M. Pei, conducted by A.G. 35 Henry Moore to J. Carter Brown, 17th December 1976, NGA3. Ritchie, 22nd February 1993, pp.38 –39. 36 It was for this reason that Moore chose not to use his preferred foundry: Noack 31 D. Sylvester: Henry Moore , London 1968, p.119. of Berlin, but rather the Morris Singer Foundry in Basingstoke, England, who were 32 In a 1967 article the work is captioned as Knife-edge sliding piece ; A. Elsen: ‘The also casting Three piece vertebrae for Dallas. The choice saved both money and shipping New Freedom of Henry Moore’, Art International 7 (September 1967), pp.42–45. time, and allowed close supervision of the work: ‘The English foundry has much 33 Brown wrote a memo to David Scott to say that Moore ‘had agreed to consider less experience in doing large bronzes and I, and my boys, will need to spend much reversing KNIFE EDGE, to follow I.M.’s desire’; J. Carter Brown to David Scott, more time working at the English foundry to help them in producing as highly 3rd August 1976, NGA3. finished surface as I desire!’. Henry Moore to I.M. Pei, 26th October 1976, Henry 34 David Scott to J. Carter Brown, 9th September 1976; Brown to Scott, memo, 11th Moore Foundation Archive, Much Hadham.

the burlington magazine • cliiI • april 2011 253 HENRY MOORE’S ‘KNIFE EDGE MIRROR TWO PIECE’

When Brown saw the reversed maquette in the following February (after it had been accepted by the Acquisitions Committee), this was exactly the point he raised, writing to Moore: ‘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 the finishing 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 had admired the ‘surface work showing your hand’, although it was ‘less volumetric’ than he had expected. 39 The surface of the London Knife edge two piece is indeed highly articulated, showing the scrapings and scorings that also characterised the Lincoln Centre 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 works from the 1960s, such as Pointed torso and Architectural project , both of 1969. Such works moved away from the markings and articulations that, during the 1950s, may be compared to the ‘suf - fering surfaces’ of Brutalist sculpture, and that in the 1960s more readily provoked comparisons with natural formations, rocks and landscape features. Moore clearly saw that the ‘visual interest’ of such surface markings would be in conflict with the monumen - tal scale of Knife edge mirror , and would not in any case be visible from 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 transparency to blow up to any size, to experiment with and to try out, as suggested, on the building’. 41 At over twenty-three feet, the 52. Henry Moore at the installation of Knife edge two piece at the East Building, 10th final version is on an architectural scale comparable with to 13th May 1978. (National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gallery Archives; photo - graph by Jose Naranjo, Bill Sumits). Vertebrae , designed to be walked through and around. It is one of Moore’s largest sculptures. It was precisely this ‘indiscriminate’ enlargement of models that Barbara Rose had criticised a few years earlier. The ‘pernicious’ notion of scale-as-content was which were then assembled to form an approximate full-scale exemplified for Rose by Moore’s Lincoln Center Reclining model for finishing (Fig.53). Where the old method of plaster figure , ‘lounging like a great melancholy behemoth in the plaza build-up using a stick and rag armature, used for example on of Lincoln Center [. . .] a perfect example of a work executed on the Lincoln Center Reclining figure , encouraged a textured an inappropriate scale’. 42 surface, it was impossible with Polystyrene to achieve the same Rose’s comments on the Lincoln Center Reclining figure are, to depth of surface texture, even when plaster was added to the an extent, justifiable; yet by the time Moore came to make Knife Polystyrene model. Although the Polystyrene full-scale models edge mirror , ten years later, the problem of scale was greatly were in many cases only roughly approximate, and were cast resolved. Rather than attempt to mediate between architecture by an outside firm before being returned to Moore’s studio for and the human body, the monumental scale of the figure finishing, in many cases the smooth surface of the cast was signifies a ‘return’ to architecture, such that the sculpture is only left untouched. 37 viewable as a whole from a significant distance, and close to can

37 The firm was Norman & Raymond of Clapham. My thanks to James Cooper and viewer; J. Meyer: ‘No More Scale’, Artforum (Summer 2004), pp.221–28. Michael Phipps for this information. 43 Cf. R. Morris: ‘Notes on Sculpture Part 2’, ibid. 2 (October 1966), pp.20 –23. 38 J. Carter Brown to Henry Moore, 3rd February 1977, NGA3. 44 H. Read: The Art of Sculpture. The A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 1954, 39 J. Carter Brown to Henry Moore, 26th July 1976, NGA3. National Gallery of Art, Washington , New York 1956, p.5. 40 Photographs in the Moore Archive show that the transparent hanger-like studio 45 Competing demands from the point of view of sculpture and architecture extend built to house the plaster model for the Lincoln Center Reclining figure was sub- even to the naming of the work; just before the sculpture arrived in Washington, sequently used for Knife edge two piece , Atom piece and The archer . Carter Brown circulated a memo distinguishing between the final work and 41 Henry Moore to I.M. Pei, 22nd April 1976, NGA3. two maquettes, one plaster, one bronze, that the Gallery had also acquired. ‘The 42 See B. Rose: ‘Blowup: The Problem of Scale in Sculpture’, Art in America 56 Director has ruled that of the two new Henry Moore sculptures, the large plaza piece (July 1968), pp.80 –91. By today’s standards, Knife edge mirror may not seem partic- will be called “Knife Edge Mirror Two Piece” and (to differentiate it) the small one ularly large; James Meyer has described the increasingly monumental appearance of will be called “Two Piece Mirror Knife Edge’”. ‘Memorandum to the Executive post-War sculpture dominated by sheer size, rather than related to the body of the Officers, DEX, Registrar and DCT, DID’, 20th March 1978, NGA: E.B. –

254 april 2011 • cliiI • the burlington magazine HENRY MOORE’S ‘KNIFE EDGE MIRROR TWO PIECE’

53. Plaster maquette of Knife edge two piece showing lateral sections for enlargement 54. View of Knife edge two piece against the façade of East Building, by Henry in Polystyrene. (Reproduced by permission of the Henry Moore Foundation, Moore. 1976 –78. Bronze, 5.345 by 7.211 by 3.631 m. (National Gallery of Art, Much Hadham). Washington; photograph: Gregory Vershbow, January 2011).

only be experienced (or at least was originally intended to be), as both of the changing views of the sculpture and the controver - a ‘walk-through’ structure (Fig.52). sies surrounding its maintenance and restoration. 47 In fact, as we Questions of scale and bodily experience were central to have seen, these controversies and conflicting interpretations minimalist definitions of sculpture current in North America as were already formative during its commissioning and fabrication. Moore’s works were appearing in museums and public spaces Over thirty years later this history can be assessed, and a ‘critical around the continent. Works such as Mirror knife edge may be evaluation and interpretation’ of Moore’s late works, including read in apposition to these new definitions of sculpture, based their reception in North America, becomes possible. on phenomenological experience and bodily identification. No more telling account could be cited in this respect than Robert Morris’s definition of sculpture as existing somewhere that given by the meçene of the East Building, Paul Mellon, in an between the intimacy of an ornament and the anonymity of a interview conducted just over a decade after the opening. ‘I monument, is one of the most frequently cited definitions of think my father, if he walked into the East Building today, would the somatic basis of minimalist sculpture, and clearly relates be horrified! And he would have thought he was in a madhouse! to the problems of scale and placement that had defined And I think that’s true of my sister. To a certain extent it’s true the commissioning of Knife edge mirror .43 Intriguingly, it seems of me too. There are certain things, especially the hugeness of that Morris derived this definition from , one things. Because I think of art, and I think probably my father did, of Moore’s firmest supporters, in Read’s Mellon lectures on and my sister did, and a lot of people do, as things that you want sculpture given in 1954 in Washington, particularly the first to have about you in a house. So that once things become things lecture, ‘The Monument and the Amulet’. But where Morris that are done purely for the public, great canvases, great huge saw sculpture as a negation of the ornament and the mon - statues, and so forth [. . .] I suppose what I’m saying is I have ument, Read saw sculpture as having its origins in the two nothing against it, and I suppose I have the feeling that these are extremes, and thus ‘as a method of creating an object with the things that two generations from now are going to decide, and independence of the amulet and the effect of the monument’. 44 it’s not for me to decide’. 48 ‘Two generations’ later the ‘hugeness Read’s definition is an apt summary of the ‘knife edge’ on of things’ has become less an aesthetic shock than a focus for which Moore’s East Building sculpture itself stands: caught at a historic description. For Mirror knife edge , as we have seen, this mid-point between architectural adornment and sculptural involves not only the means of enlargement and fabrication, and independence (Fig.54). 45 the critical context of , but also the new relationship The installation 46 and subsequent life of Knife edge mirror are between abstract sculpture and monumental architecture that subjects for further investigation, and would include an account evolved during the 1960s.

MOORE Two Edge Knife Piece [sic ] (November 1977 –December 1981) (hereafter of sculpture’, Washington Star (12th May 1978), p.8. cited as NGA4). As noted above, the work is listed in Moore’s catalogue raisonné not 47 The fate of the Polystyrene full-scale model is also of interest. Whereas Moore’s as ‘Knife Edge Mirror’, but ‘Mirror Knife Edge’. plaster models are displayed as works of art, the Polystyrene enlargements were gen - 46 The two pieces travelled separately, the smaller arriving on 28th March, the erally considered expendable, existing as means to an end. A letter from the Director larger, delayed by a dock strike at Southampton, on 9th May. Moore arrived two days of the shipping company to Brown shows that the Polystyrene models were available later to supervise the installation. He was quoted in the local newspaper: ‘I’m to the packers ‘so that the major part of the packing work can be completed before concerned that at some stages of the day, the whole sculpture will get the sun [. . .] the sculpture is available to us’; Michael K. Scott, Director, Pitte Scott Ltd., Fine Art There will always be some time when some will be in shadow at the top. That’s all Packers and Shippers, to J. Carter Brown, 16th January 1978, NGA4. Photographs right, though I wouldn’t want to take a photograph of it then. If a sculpture is fixed, and film footage of the packing cases being opened in Washington suggest that the unturnable, and this piece is so big that it is unturnable there will always be some Polystyrene model had in fact been cut up and used as packing material. time that is preferable to others. All I want is that the whole sun will get the 48 NGA, Oral History Program, interviews with Paul Mellon, conducted by Robert sculpture at some point’; B. Weintraub: ‘Architect, artist, pianist, and oh, yes, 15 tons Bowen, 26th and 27th July and 10th November 1988, pp.74 –75.

the burlington magazine • cliiI • april 2011 255