No other sculptor is as closely associated with Rockefeller Center as Lee Lawrie. The man behind Atlas, Wisdom and Sound and Light produced more than a dozen pieces for the complex, all of which have become recognizable icons of Rockefeller Center's aesthetic identity. Though Atlas is the most famous character to come from his chisel, our favorite of his Rockefeller Center installations is The Story of Mankind (1937), which stands above the door to Brasserie Ruhlmann, at the 50th Street entrance to the International Building. Sometimes referred to as The Story of Man, its original title was The Purpose of the International Building. (We think the current title is the catchiest.)
The carved limestone piece is made up of 15 panels—Lawrie himself referred to the panels as "hieroglyphs," denoting his intention for the piece to be "read" like a story, from beginning to end. And such a tale—the whole of modern mankind—is no small anecdote!
The massive, rectangular, stone-cut screen places Earth at top in the form of a clock (which still tells accurate time, by the way), its sunshiney rays beaming down to the god Mercury, as well as to the noble humans below. Flanked by glowing stars (the big Dipper and the Southern Cross constellations, showcasing both hemispheres), the story of universal man's progress plays out below; with its extensive use of gold gilding, the wall shimmers and shines in the light of the Plaza. In terms of its stylistic approach, color scheme and thematic representation, The Story of Mankind is one of the Center's finest examples of pure Modernism.
How to tell the story of the entirety of human existence? Lawrie chose a specific set of scenes to illustrate human progess, and according to The Art of Rockefeller Center, by Christine Roussel, the panels are supposed to be read from the bottom up—start from the bottom center, where four figures (pictured above) are meant to represent the races of mankind. Other easy-to-identify hieroglyphs show a sailing ship (international commerce), smokestacks (modern technology) and three figures in the center who denote (based on the props they hold) art, science and industry.
Lee Lawrie was born in Germany in 1877, moved to the US with his mother in 1882 and settled in NYC in 1894. Early in his career he became a close collaborator of the architect Bertram Goodhue, producing sculptural pieces for Goodhue buildings such as the Nebraska State Capital, the Chapel at West Point and the Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago (all are still extant). After Goodhue died in 1924, Lawrie began to work closely with Raymond Hood, the primary architect behind Rockefeller Center's structures. Hood commissioned him to produce both bas relief and freestanding pieces throughout the complex, and Lawrie's work can be found gracing 30 Rock, La Maison Francaise, the British Empire Building and One Rockefeller Plaza.
Lawrie died in 1963 and is still considered one of modern art's most important architectural sculptors. For further research into the man's fascinating life and work, dig deep into this Library of Congress index, detailing the LOC's collection of Lawrie papers. For quick visual reference, this Flickr group is dedicated to images of Lawrie's work.
