Delamerle

Art on the Rockefeller Center, Manhattan

In November 1931, John Todd suggested the creation of a program for placing distinctive artworks within each of the buildings. Hartley Burr Alexander, a noted mythology and symbology professor, was tasked with planning the complex’s arts installations. Alexander submitted his plan for the site’s artwork in December 1932. As part of the proposal, the complex would have a variety of sculptures, statues, murals, friezes, decorative fountains, and mosaics. In an expansion of Hood’s setback-garden plan, Alexander’s proposal also included rooftop gardens atop all the buildings, which would create a “Babylonian garden” when viewed from above.

At first, Alexander suggested “Homo Fabor, Man the Builder” as the complex’s overarching theme, representing satisfaction with one’s occupation rather than with the wage. However, that theme was not particularly well received by the architects, so Alexander proposed another theme, the “New Frontiers”; this theme dealt with social and scientific innovations and represented the challenges that humanity faced “after the conquest of the physical world”. In theory, this was considered a fitting theme, but Alexander had been so specific about the details of the necessary artworks that it limited the creative license for any artists who would be commissioned for such works, so he was fired. It took several tries to agree on the current theme, “The March of Civilization”, at which point some of the art had already been commissioned, including those which Alexander had proposed.

The art that currently exists within Rockefeller Center was inspired by Professor Alexander’s arts program. Sculptor Lee Lawrie contributed the largest number of individual pieces – twelve, including the Atlas statue facing Fifth Avenue and the conspicuous friezes of Wisdom above the main entrance to 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Edward Trumbull coordinated the colors of the works located inside the buildings, and Léon-Victor Solon did the same job for the exterior pieces. Isamu Noguchi’s gleaming stainless steel bas-relief, News, over the main entrance to 50 Rockefeller Plaza (the Associated Press Building) was, at the time of commissioning, the largest metal bas-relief in the world. The complex’s other sculptors included Rene Chambellan, Leo Friedlander, Robert Garrison, Alfred Janniot, Carl Paul Jennewein, Gaston Lachaise, Leo Lentelli, Paul Manship, Giacomo Manzù, Hildreth Meiere, and Attilio Piccirilli. Other artists included Carl Milles, Margaret Bourke-White, and Dean Cornwell. Radio City Music Hall architect Donald Deskey commissioned many Depression-era artists to design works for the interior of the hall, including Stuart Davis’s 1932 mural Men Without Women, named after the short story collection by Ernest Hemingway that had been published the same year. One of the center’s more controversial works was Man at the Crossroads, created by Diego Rivera, which was originally commissioned for 30 Rockefeller Plaza’s lobby but was demolished before it could be completed.