Thanks for more pics, John .
Loved the contrast between the Rockefeller tree and the beggarly one .
And I saw my sculpture, Prometheus!
Oviously, it's not mine - but I view it as "mine". Although the tree and the ice skating rink are well-known to me, I hadn't heard of the statue in the forty years of my life, until Chuckie sent me a postcard with it. A few weeks later, I saw it/read about it again on BetterMost. We talked about it on Chuckie's blog.
I added Prometheus to my "must see" places of NYC (whenever I will get to see it).
Chrissie, I hope you see it soon!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_ManshipPaul Manship
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaPaul Howard Manship (December 24, 1885 – January 28, 1966) was a prominent American sculptor of the 20th century.
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When he returned to America from his European sojourn, Manship found that his style was attractive to both modernists and conservatives. His simplification of line and detail appealed to those who wished to move beyond the Beaux-Arts classical realism prevalent in the day. Also, his view of and use of a more traditional "beauty" as well as an avoidance of the more radical and abstract trends in art made his works attractive to more conservative art collectors. Manship's work is often considered to be a major precursor to
Art Deco.http://www.artsjournal.com/man/archives20061001.shtmlInfluenced by the Widener family (whose Old Masters, European decorative arts, and so on fill the National Gallery),
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. hired
John Singer Sargent to paint his father's portrait. The two men got along better than anyone expected, and when Sargent suggested that Rockefeller sit for a bust by a sculptor named
Paul Manship, Rockefeller assented.
Manship had a pedigree that Rockefeller was likely to appreciate. He had studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Art Students League and he learned to infuse his work with classical references after he won the coveted Prix de Rome. In between-the-wars America, Manship's mixture of allegory, neo-classicism and softened modern lines was mighty popular: It tied America's new wealth and broadened ambition, as demonstrated on an international scale by America's involvement in World War I, with past empires. The two busts Manship made of Rockefeller were a great hit and a relationship between sculptor and patrons was forged.
A decade later, in the middle of the Great Depression, Junior would build Rockefeller Center. The project was, from beginning to end, a great challenge. Junior started the project just before the stock market crashed in 1929, and no one expected it to succeed. After all, who needed millions of new square feet of office space at a time of economic catastrophe?
But, obviously, Junior pushed forward. He even stuffed Rockefeller Center with art, including work by
Isamu Noguchi,
Margaret Bourke-White, and
Lee Lawrie. The most famous work at Rock Center was created by an artist with whom Junior had a prior relationship: Paul Manship.
Manship's Prometheus is one of the most famous sculptures in America. It presents Prometheus in the heavens, just after he has acquired fire. He has not yet brought it back to earth. He hovers above the signs of the zodiac, more floating with the gods than falling back to earth. The sculpture is a faithful, selective representation of the Prometheus myth: Prometheus created man out of clay figures that came to life when Athena breathed life into them. Later on, Prometheus nobly stole fire from the hearth of the gods and brought it down to man, only to be punished by Zeus, who sent an eagle peck at his liver for eternity.
Manship's sculpture, installed near the base of Rock Center's tallest building, is an allegorical glorification of Junior and the Rockefeller Center story. Rockefeller created a major urban development at a time of national crisis; He breathed fire into the city. And because of the aggressive way Rockefeller pursued tenants and other business dealings perceived to be monopolistic, he was excoriated by the press and the public. Manship had known the Rockefellers for years -- he knew how mixing the Prometheus myth with the Rockefeller story would appeal to his patrons. The result is a sculpture that stands in for the story of the Rockefellers, their development, and America, all joined by Manship's aesthetic. Seventy years later, it still works.