The History of Man - New York City, NY
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Metro2
N 40° 45.502 W 073° 58.764
18T E 586147 N 4512435
This sculpture is located at 45 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, NY.
Waymark Code: WMCFP9
Location: New York, United States
Date Posted: 09/02/2011
Views: 15
The Smithsonian Inventory describes this work entitled "The History of Man" thusly:
"A relief on the facade of the building which as three vertical rows of images. The images include a single reclining male, two figure groups, four buildings, a large sailing ship, a bird, and a lion." But there are also additional images of sunrays, stars, trees, and waves. Above the sunrays is a circular clock which apparently represents the Sun.
The relief appears above the entrance to 45 Rockefeller Plaza...and the Brasserie Ruhlmann operates their restaurant establishment on either side of the entrance...partially obscuring the reliefs with their canopies.
Wikipedia (
visit link) has a good article about the artist, Lee Lawrie (1877-1963), informing us that Lawrie:
"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."