[2] Very little documentation of the work exists,[3] but it is known that it was painted circa 1912–1913, during the artist's Cubo-Futurist phase.

[2] The artwork is typical of Malevich's other paintings, in that the subject matter is of a person generally overlooked by society.

The human is in a constant state of movement; the person is either repeatedly inspecting his progress on the knife, and, dismayed by the fact that it is not yet sharp enough, once more starts busily peddling the machine, is simply applying the blade to the machine in a fragmentary way, as though he were a novice, or is only shown carefully putting the blade to the sharpener in slow motion.

Behind him on the left are some vases atop shelves and a table and possibly one or two metal pipes, whilst on the right are unclear grey objects (possibly buildings), implying that the person is a professional knife grinder in their workshop; a small staircase may also be observed at the bottom right corner.

The metallic palette[1] was probably chosen to emphasise the violent manner in which the shavings and knife glitter.