| Standing Figure: Knife Edge | |
|---|---|
 At the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 2007 | |
| Artist | Henry Moore |
| Year | 1961 |
| Catalogue | LH 482 |
| Medium | Bronze |
| Dimensions | 280 cm(110 in) |
Standing Figure: Knife Edge is a bronze sculpture by the English artist Henry Moore. It was cast in two full-size versions: Standing Figure: Knife Edge (LH 482) in 1961, and a larger Large Standing Figure: Knife Edge (LH 482a) in 1976. The sculpture also is sometimes known as Standing Figure (Bone) or Winged Figure.
Moore first conceived the work in 1961. It is based on a fragment of a bird's breastbone, to which a base and a head were added with plasticine. A rounded protrusion forms the head, and the figure has a diagonal line at its waist. The resulting composition resembles a human torso, similar to the Winged Victory of Samothrace . It had been described as the end point of Moore's investigation of upright figures, which started with Standing Figure (1950) (LH 290). He used a similar process, starting with bone fragments, for his 1962 work, Knife Edge Two Piece .
The sculpture was enlarged in three stages. First, Moore made a 162.5 centimetres (5 ft 4.0 in) high working model (LH 481) in 1961. The Henry Moore Foundation at Perry Green, Hertfordshire, has two versions, one in plaster and another in fibreglass, [1] [2] and other examples are held by the Hakone Open-Air Museum in Japan, [3] and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington DC. [4]
Second, Moore made the 2.8 metres (9 ft 2 in) high Standing Figure: Knife Edge (LH 482), cast at the Morris Singer art foundry in 1961 in an edition of 7 (6 plus 1 artist's copy). The artist's copy, cast 0, is displayed in the W. B. Yeats Memorial Garden at St Stephen's Green in Dublin. [5] [6] [7] This piece was restored in 2020. [8] There are other examples at:
- One Maritime Plaza in San Francisco [9] [10]
- Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena (cast 4) [11] [12]
- Minneapolis Sculpture Garden [13] [14]
- Botanischer Garten Grugapark, Essen, Germany [15] [16]
- Kreeger Museum, Washington, DC [17]
Moore enlarged the work again to create the 3.6 metres (11 ft 10 in) high Large Standing Figure: Knife Edge (LH 482a), cast in 1976 in an edition of 8 (6 plus 2 artist's copies). The two artists copies, cast 0 and cast 00, are owned by the Henry Moore Foundation, with one displayed in Greenwich Park from 1979 to 2007, and again since 2011. [18] [19] [20] There are other examples at:
- Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, in Hovikodden, Norway (cast 1) [21] [22]
- one at the Stiftung Landis and Gyr, beside Lake Zug in Switzerland (cast 3) [23]
- National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan [24]
- North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, North Carolina [25]
- Little Rock, Arkansas [26] [27]
Standing Figure: Knife Edge, St Stephen's Green, Dublin
Standing Figure: Knife Edge, Essen
Standing Figure: Knife Edge, Essen
Large Standing Figure: Knife Edge, Greenwich Park
