The history is a mystery for this abstract Henry Moore sculpture.

Henry Moore’s statue was originally called Winged Victory, which was a pun because even though the sculpture kind of resembles the original Winged Victory of Samothrace, it is also modeled after the breastbone of a bird (Moore loved bones).  The original title was certainly better than “Knife Edged,” but Moore probably figured out pretty quickly that no one could tell what this was supposed to be just by looking at it, so he picked a title that would be equally senseless.

There really isn’t a lot of information about this piece, so here is a story I made up for you:

Henry Moore, sculptor and bone enthusiast, was sitting with a full belly after his family’s traditional Thanksgiving dinner.  Observing the carnage draping every dish on the table, his eyes finally rested on the center of it all: the turkey carcass.  Maybe it was the food coma, or maybe it was divine intervention, but something about the turkey bones spoke to him.  The next day he went to his local bronze store and asked the clerk for enough bronze to make a breastbone of a bird the size of God.  The clerk had no clue how big that was, so he gave him enough to make a 10ft. tall statue.  And then Moore got to work.*

*Please never use this paragraph for anything even remotely academic.  Disclaimer: Sartle is not responsible for those who cannot separate fact from fiction.