Lee Oscar Lawrie (October 16, 1877 – January 23, 1963[1]) was an American
architectural sculptor and an important figure in the American sculpture 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.
He created a frieze on the
Nebraska State Capitol building in
Lincoln, Nebraska, including a portrayal of the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation. He also created some of the architectural sculpture and his most prominent work, the free-standing bronze Atlas (installed 1937) at
New York City's
Rockefeller Center.[2]
Lee Lawrie was born in
Rixdorf, Germany, in 1877 and immigrated to the United States in 1882 as a young child with his family; they settled in
Chicago. It was there, at the age of 14, that he began working for the sculptor
Richard Henry Park.
Lawrie received a bachelor's degree in fine arts from
Yale University in 1910. He was an instructor in Yale's School of Fine Arts from 1908 to 1919 and taught in the architecture program at
Harvard University from 1910 to 1912.[4]
Collaborations with Cram and Goodhue
Lawrie's collaborations with
Ralph Adams Cram and
Bertram Goodhue brought him to the forefront of architectural sculptors in the United States. After the breakup of the Cram, Goodhue firm in 1914, Lawrie continued to work with Goodhue until the architect died in 1924. He next worked with Goodhue's successors.
Lawrie sculpted numerous bas reliefs for
El Fureidis,[5] an estate in
Montecito, California designed by Goodhue. The bas reliefs depict the Arthurian Legends and remain intact at the estate today.
The
Nebraska State Capitol and the
Los Angeles Public Library both feature extensive sculptural programs integrated with 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.
A bust of Lawrie was sculpted Joseph Kiselewski. The Academy Art Museum in Easton, Maryland likely commissioned
Kiselewski to do the bust. Lawrie was a co-founder of the museum.[7] Kiselewski worked with Lawrie in the early years of his career prior to going to France to study.
After Goodhue's death, Lawrie produced 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 said, "There has been entirely too much talk about the collaboration of architect, painter and sculptor." He relegated Lawrie to the role of a decorator.[11]
Lawrie's most noted work is not architectural: it is the freestanding statue of
Atlas, on Fifth Avenue at Rockefeller Center, standing a total 45 feet tall, with a 15-foot human figure supporting an
armillary sphere.[12] At its unveiling, some critics were reminded of
Benito Mussolini, while
James Montgomery Flagg suggested that it looked as Mussolini thought he looked.[13] The international character of
Streamline Moderne, embraced by
Fascism as well as corporate democracy, lost 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
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.
^Thomas E. Luebke, ed., Civic Art: A Centennial History of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, 2013): Appendix b, p. 548.
^"Sculpture". Joseph Kiselewski. Retrieved May 12, 2023.
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.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lee 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.