Lee Lawrie

Lee Oscar Lawrie (October 16, 1877 – January 23, 1963) was one of the United States' foremost architectural sculptors and a key figure in the American art scene preceding World War II. Over his long career of more than 300 commissions Lawrie's style evolved through Modern Gothic, to Beaux-Arts Classicism and finally into Moderne or Art Deco. His work includes the details on the Nebraska State Capitol building in Lincoln, Nebraska and some of the architectural sculpture and, his most prominent work, the free-standing bronze Atlas (installed 1937) at New York City's Rockefeller Center.

Early work

Lawrie was born in Rixdorf, Germany, and came to the United States in 1882 as a young child, settling in Chicago. It was there, at the age of 14, that he began working for the sculptor Richard Henry Park.

Reredos of Saint Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street, New York

In 1892 he had the chance to work for many of the sculptors in Chicago, constructing the "White City" for the World Columbian Exposition of 1893. Following the completion of the work at the Exposition, Lawrie followed the other mostly East Coast artists back east and settled in as an assistant to William Ordway Partridge. The next decade found him working with other established sculptors: St. Gaudens, Philip Martiny, Alexander Phimister Proctor, John William Kitson and others. His work at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St Louis, 1904, under Karl Bitter, the foremost architectural sculptor of the time, allowed Lawrie to further develop both his skills and his reputation as an architectural sculptor.

Collaborations with Cram and Goodhue

It was Lawrie's collaborations with Ralph Adams Cram and Bertram Goodhue that brought him to the forefront of architectural sculptors in America. After the breakup of the Cram, Goodhue firm in 1914, Lawrie continued to work with Goodhue until Goodhue's premature death in 1924, then with his successors.

The Nebraska State Capitol and the Los Angeles Public Library both feature extensive sculptural programs integrated into (rather than applied onto) the surface, massing, spatial grammar and social function of the building. Lawrie's collaborations with Goodhue are arguably the most highly developed example of architectural sculpture in American architectural history.

Lawrie's work at Rockefeller Chapel, University of Chicago, circa 1929

Commissions related to Goodhue

• the Chapel at West Point, West Point, New York (Cram and Goodhue)
• the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer, New York City (Cram and Goodhue)
• St. Bartholomew's Church (New York), (Cram and Goodhue)
• the reredos at Saint Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue in New York City (Cram and Goodhue)
• the Nebraska State Capitol, Lincoln, Nebraska (Goodhue)
• the Los Angeles Public Library, Los Angeles, California (Goodhue)
• the Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago (Goodhue)
• Trinity English Lutheran Church, Fort Wayne, Indiana (Goodhue)
• large relief panels for the National Academy of Sciences Building in Washington, D.C. (Goodhue)
• Christ Church Cranbrook, in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (Goodhue)
• the Church of the Heavenly Rest, New York City (Mayers Murray & Phillip)

Rockefeller Center

After Goodhue's death, Lawrie went on to produce important and highly visible work under Raymond Hood at Rockefeller Center in New York City, which included the Atlas in collaboration with Rene Paul Chambellan. By November 1931 Hood made it known that "There has been entirely too much talk about the collaboration of architect, painter and sculptor", and relegated Lawrie to the role of a decorator.

Wisdom, 30 Rockefeller Plaza

As a result, Lawrie's most recognizable work is not architectural: it is the freestanding statue on Fifth Avenue at Rockefeller Center, standing 45 feet tall, with a 15-foot figure of Atlas, supporting an armillary sphere, with a total height of 45 feet. As its unveiling, some critics were reminded of Benito Mussolini, while James Montgomery Flagg suggested that it looked as Mussolini thought he looked; the international character of Streamline Moderne, embraced by Fascism as well as corporate democracy, did not find favor during the Second World War.

Featured above the entrance to 30 Rockefeller Plaza and axially behind the golden Prometheus, Lawrie's Wisdom is one of the most visible works of art in the complex. An Art Deco piece, it echoes the statements of power shown in Atlas and Paul Manship's Prometheus.

Other commissions

Other Lawrie commissions include:

• Allegorical relief panels called Courage, Patriotism and Wisdom over the entry doors to United States Senate chamber (done as part of the 1950 Federal-period remodeling of the Senate), Washington, D.C.
• Education Building (a.k.a. Forum Building) in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
• Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
• Peace Memorial at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
• Fidelity Mutual Life Building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (now part of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the sculptural elements of which include the owl of wisdom, the dog of fidelity, the pelican of charity, the possum of protection, and the squirrel of frugality), architects Zantzinger, Borie and Medary
• Statue of George Washington, National Cathedral, Washington, D.C.
• Friezes for the Ramsey County Courthouse in Saint Paul, Minnesota
• Two Egyptian bas-reliefs for the 1924 Hale Solar Laboratory in Pasadena, California
• National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and the bronze doors of the John Adams Building at the Library of Congress Annex, both in Washington, D.C.
• Harkness Memorial Tower at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
• Beaumont Tower at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan
• Kirk in the Hills Presbyterian in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
• the Bok Singing Tower in Mountain Lake, Florida, architects Zantzinger, Borie and Medary
• Designed sculptures for the Brittany American Cemetery and Memorial in Brittany, France executed by Jean Juge of Paris and the French sculptor, Augustine Beggi.
• Hubbard Bell Grossman Pillot Memorial gravestone.

Lawrie's work in popular culture

• Featured on the cover of The New Yorker magazine, Dec. 20 & 27, 2010.

Gallery

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  George Washington statue - National Cathedral, Washington, DC

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  Hubbard Bell Grossman Pillot Memorial, Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, DC

Bronze doors of the John Adams Building

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  East doors, Library of Congress John Adams Building (1939)

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  Sculpted bronze figures of Hermes and Itzamna (1939)

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  Sculpted bronze figures of Nabu and Tahmurath (1939)

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  Sculpted bronze figures of Odin and Quetzalcoatl (1939)

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  Sculpted bronze figures of Ogma and Sequoyah (1939)

See also

• List of Saltus Award winners

External links

• Bisonwerks - Website of Gregory Paul Harm, Preeminent researcher on the history and works of Lawrie
• LeeLawrie.com - Additional Website of Gregory Paul Harm. Features additional Lawrie works recently added by Harm to the Smithsonian Institution's Art Inventory Catalog.
• Lee Lawrie - Stalking Lawrie: America's Machine Age Michelangelo.
• Lee Lawrie page on philart.net - pictures of artistic details on the Perelman building
• [1] - Lee Lawrie's Prairie Deco: History in Stone at the Nebraska State Capitol, new book on Lee Lawrie's work on the Nebraska State Capitol, which was Lawrie's largest commission of his 70 year career. For sale through Blurb.com
• [2] Article on Greg Harm's research and discoveries about Mr. Lawrie and his work on the Nebraska State Capitol.

References

• Bok, Edward W., America's Taj Mahal - The Singing Tower of Florida, The Georgia Marble Company, Tate, Georgia c. 1929.
• Brown, Elinor L., Architectural Wonder of the World, State of Nebraska, Building Division, Lincoln, Nebraska 1978.
• Fowler, Charles F., Building a Landmark - The Capitol of Nebraska, Nebraska State Building Division, 1981.
• Garvey, Timothy Joseph, Lee Lawrie Classicism and American Culture, 1919 - 1954, PhD. Thesis University of Minnesota 1980.
• Gebhard, David, The National Trust Guide to Art Deco in America, John Wiley & Sons, New York, New York 1996.
• Kvaran & Lockley, Guide to Architectural Sculpture of America, unpublished manuscript.
• Lawrie; Lee, Sculpture - 48 Plates With a Forward by the Sculptor, J.H. Hanson Cleveland, Ohio 1936.
• Luebke, Frederick C. Editor, A Harmony of the Arts – The Nebraska State Capitol, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska 1990.
• Masters, Magaret Dale, Hartley Burr Alexander—Writer-In-Stone, Margaret Dale Masters 1992 .
• Nelson, Paul D., Courthouse Sculptor: Lee Lawrie, Ramsey County History Quarterly V43 #4, *Ramsey County Historical Society, St Paul, MN, 2009.
• Oliver, Richard, Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, The Architectural History Foundation, New York & The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1985.
• Whitaker, Charles Harris,Editor, Text by Lee Lawrie et al. Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, Architect-and Master of Many Arts, Press of the American Institute of Architects, Inc., NYC 1925.
• Whitaker, Charles Harris and Hartley Burr Alexander, The Architectural Sculpture of the State Capitol at Lincoln Nebraska, Press of the American Institute of Architects, New York 1926.