page_title: Knife Edge Two Piece 1962–65
section_title: Westminster cast
hierarchical_section_title: Knife Edge Two Piece 1962–65 / Westminster cast
caption_attribution_description: English: Knife Edge - Two Piece by Henry Moore, 1962 - Westminster - London - England.
context_page_description: Knife Edge Two Piece 1962–65 is an abstract bronze sculpture by Henry Moore. It is one of Moore's earliest sculptures in two pieces, a mode that he started to adopt in 1959. Its form was inspired by the shape of a bone fragment. Moore created the sculpture from an edition of 10 working models in 1962; these working models are now in public collections. Moore created four full-size casts between 1962-1965, with one retained by him. The three casts are on public display on College Green in Westminster, London; Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver; and the garden at Kykuit, the house of the Rockefeller family in Tarrytown, New York. Moore's own cast is on display at his former studio and estate, 'Hoglands' in Perry Green, Hertfordshire in southern England. A similar work, Mirror Knife Edge 1977, is displayed at the entrance to I. M. Pei's east wing of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The Westminster cast was donated by Moore through the Contemporary Art Society to what he believed was the City of London, but its actual ownership was undetermined for many years.
context_section_description: The second cast of Knife Edge Two Piece is located in Abingdon Street Gardens, also known as College Green, opposite the Palace of Westminster in London. In 1965 Whitney Straight, the chairman of the Contemporary Art Society, wrote to Charles Pannell MP, the Minister of State for Public Buildings and Works to tell him that the society was "considering the possibility of ‘making a gift of a substantial work of art to be erected at some suitable site in London". The Contemporary Art Society met with Henry Moore to discuss their proposal and Moore subsequently chose the site at Abingdon Street Gardens for the sculpture. Moore waived his usual fee, and the Contemporary Art Society paid for the cost of the casting. The sculpture was unveiled by Robert Mellish, the Minister of Public Building and Works, on 1 September 1967.
  Moore liked the site so much that he did not even visit an alternative site in Hyde Park; he felt that the sculpture might have been lost in such a big park, recalling an experience he had trying to find the sculpture Riva by Jacob Epstein in the park. He welcomed the fact that the sculpture would be next to a public path and would have seating nearby to allow contemplation, and compared the gardens favourably with the setting for Hubert Le Sueur’s equestrian statue of Charles I at Charing Cross, "which, in order to look at closely and appreciate in detail, you have to risk your life in crossing a maze of traffic". The siting of the sculpture was disliked by some, with Neil Marten MP asking Parliament why "this lovely part of Westminster should be littered with something that looks like a crashed unidentified flying object."
  Moore believed he had donated the work to the City of London, but the Henry Moore Foundation believed it was owned by the City of Westminster, and its delivery was accepted by the Ministry of Public Building and Works. The land where it is situated was a bombsite in the Second World War, and is owned by the Parliamentary Estate; Westminster City Council operates a car park underneath. The sculpture was moved and placed on a plinth in 1969. No formal arrangements were ever made for the ownership and care of Knife Edge Two Piece, and it fell into a state of disrepair. Though it is worth an estimated £5m, no conservation work ever took place on the sculpture, and its ownership was unresolved until the House of Commons agreed to take responsibility for it. Knife Edge Two Piece entered the Parliamentary Art Collection in 2011.  It was granted a Grade II* listing in January 2016.
caption: The second cast of Knife Edge Two Piece in 2004, with the Palace of Westminster in the background.
exif: {}