Henry Spencer Moore (1898-1986), often acclaimed as the greatest British sculptor of the 20th century, produced (between 1962 and 1965) several versions of the piece seen here on the west side of Old Palace Yard. He also produced a version in the 1970's, as is described in the catalogue of the 1988 Royal Academy retrospective exhibition 'When the Director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington made a point of asking him for a new work, conceived with the identity of I.M. Pei's new East Building in mind, Moore went so far as to assert that 'I've never done that'. So Pei's architecture received an outsize version of Knife Edge: Two Piece (cat. 182) interchanged and 'flopped' but not, in the end, a sculpture initiated in response to the Washington brief.'

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The King's England London: The City and Westminster