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A gleaming, free-standing, abstract bronze sculpture made up of three rounded forms fills a two-story, covered entryway. The rounded, smooth forms sit side by side. The form on our right curves slightly inward up the left side and is lightly pinched at the center along the right side. The form on the left is shaped like a fat U with a deep, wide curve at the bottom. Most of the sculpture’s surface is lightly mottled in a rich honey-brown color, except at the top of the front face of the U’s arm, which looks as if it were cut vertically to expose an elongated oval shaped disk of highly polished, bright gold-colored bronze. A third form appears as a straight vertical element behind and to the left of the U-shaped piece. The building behind the sculpture has two stories of floor-to-ceiling windows, which reflect darkly in this photograph. The floor and ceiling above the sculpture, where the entryway covers it, are smooth, buff-pink stone. Two rows of deep-set triangles recede into the ceiling.

Henry Moore

Knife Edge Mirror Two Piece, 1976-1978

East Building, Ground Level — Entrance Terrace

Medium

bronze

Dimensions

overall: 534.5 x 721.1 x 363.1 cm (210 7/16 x 283 7/8 x 142 15/16 in.) gross weight: 5 tn

Credit Line

Gift of The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation

Accession Number

1978.43.1

Artists / Makers

Henry Moore (artist) British, 1898 - 1986

Image Use

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Inscription

lower right corner on east side: Morris / Singer / FOUNDERS / London

Marks and Labels

FM: Morris Singer

Provenance

Commissioned June/July 1977 by NGA; purchased May 1978 by NGA.

Associated Names

Moore, Henry

Exhibition History

2001: Henry Moore, Dallas Museum of Art; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2001-2002, no. 99, repro. (shown only in Washington).

Bibliography

1991: Kopper, Philip. America's National Gallery of Art: A Gift to the Nation. New York, 1991: 9, 305, 311, repros.

1992: National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 275, repro.

1994: Bowness, Alan, ed. Henry Moore: Complete Sculpture) volume 5 (Sculpture 1974-1980). London, 1994: no. 714, fig. 714, repros. 110-115.

1994: Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1994: 154, repro.

2011: Stonard, John-Paul. "Henry Moore's 'Knife Edge Mirror Two Piece' at the National Gallery of Art, Washington." The Burlington Magazine 153, no. 1297 (April 2011): 249-255, color figs. 43, 45, 52, 54.

2013: Cigola, Francesca. Art Parks: A Tour of America’s Sculpture Parks and Gardens. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2013: 101.

2013: Harris, Neil. Capital Culture: J. Carter Brown, the National Gallery of Art, and the Reinvention of the Museum Experience. Chicago and London, 2013: 152, 155-157, 259, 422.