Public Art at Rockefeller Center

New York City

 

 

Who Did What

 

In rough order of prominence, and not counting the Radio City Music Hall interiors:

 

Lee Lawrie

14 pieces throughout the complex, including the prominent Wisdom Light and Sound, and the figure of Atlas, the untitled limestone screen on the International Bldg, and a number of smaller incidental pieces close to sidewalk level like the St. Francis of Assisi on the Palazzo d'Italia, etc.

 

Paul Manship

the golden statue of Prometheus in the lower plaza, along with the Youth and Maiden attendant figures

 

Isamu Noguchi

the stainless-steel News on the façade of the Associated Press Bldg

 

Jose Maria Sert

The sepia murals in the lobby of 30 Rock; "Time" on the ceiling, "American Progress, the Triumph of Man's Accomplishments Through Physical and Mental Labor" behind the front desk, which other sources have as "Labor Collaborating with Art", also known as "Man's Conquests"

 

 

Sir Frank Brangwyn

four sepia murals in the lobby of 30 Rock

 

Carl Paul Jennewein

the nine gilded bronze figures on the British Empire Building representing the industries of fishing, shipping, coal mining, salt production, tobacco, sugar, sheep herding, wheat farming and cotton farming, and the carved-limestone "Industry" and "Agriculture" friezes at One Rockefeller Plaza

 

Alfred Janniot

the gilded "Paris and New York Joining Hands Above Figures of Poetry, Beauty and Elegance" on the façade of Le Maison Francaise

 

Hildreth Meiere

three rondels on the Radio City Music Hall, executed in enameled metal by Oscar Bach

 

Leo Friedlander

Radio and Television sculptural groups on the Sixth Avenue side of 30 Rock; Television's two groups were "Production" and "Reception"

 

Gaston Lachaise

four highly-placed limestone bas-reliefs for the Sixth Avenue façade of 1250 Avenue of the Americas, including "The Conquest of Space", "Genius Seizing the Light of the Sun", "The Spirit of Progress", and "Gifts of Earth to Mankind", along with two stone carvings for the International Building depicting workers

 

Barry Faulkner

the tile mosaic on the Sixth Avenue side of 1250 Avenue of the Americas, "Intelligence Awakening Mankind"

 

 

Attilio Piccirilli

two backlit Pyrex relief sculpture on the Palazzo d'Italia, "Youth Leading Industry" which remains, and "Advance Forever Eternal Youth" which was removed in 1940 for its political content. Piccirilli also did the polychrome panel "The Joy of Life" (above) at One Rockefeller Plaza

 

Dean Cornwell

"The Story of Transportation" in the Eastern Airlines Building, now 10 Rockefeller Center, from 1946

 

Robert Garrison

three stone reliefs on the Sixth Avenue side of 1270 Avenue of the Americas, the south façade, one of which is the Pegasus

 

Carl Milles

wood carvings in the lobby of One Rockefeller Plaza

 

Rene Paul Chambellan

the bronze dolphins, Tritons and Nereids in the fountains of the Channel Gardens, and its six fountainhead figures: Imagination, Leadership, Will, Thought, Energy and Alertness

 

Margaret Bourke-White

Destroyed: gigantic photomurals in the 'rotunda' of the NBC visitor's reception lobby, dramatically presented industrial details of radio transmission equipment. From photo evidence they look 12 feet tall and at least 40 or 50 feet, large-format with a vengeance. Nobody familiar with Bourke-White's history would miss the resemblance between these images and the pages of "USSR in Construction," the Soviet precursor to Life Magazine



Copyright 2006 - 2007 Walt Lockley. All rights reserved.