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拍品专文
During the Great Depression, John D. Rockefeller Jr. (known as ‘Junior’ to distinguish himself from his father) was the driving force behind the financing, development, and construction of Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan, where Christie’s New York now makes its home. Originally envisaged as a location for a new Metropolitan Opera complex in 1928, the Stock Market Crash of 1929 meant that the Opera could no longer afford to move uptown, and within a month the land leased for the project had been reimagined by Rockefeller working in conjunction with RCA, NBC, and RKO as a mass-media entertainment complex, which would provide a hub for television, music, radio, ‘talking pictures’, and plays. Construction on the project began in 1931 and the first buildings opened in 1933; the core of the complex was completed by 1939. Considered one of the greatest projects of the Depression era, Rockefeller Center was declared a New York City landmark in 1985 and a National Historic Landmark in 1987.
The then-RCA Building, now 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the complex’s centerpiece, opened in the spring of 1933. Preparing for the building’s opening, Junior originally approached Picasso and Matisse about decorations for the lobby, both of whom declined to participate in the project. Sir Frank Brangwyn, José Maria Sert and Diego Rivera were subsequently chosen to create the building’s murals, though Rivera’s mural was later replaced over a dispute about his inclusion of a figure of Lenin. All three artists were instructed to create their murals on canvas with the figures en grisaille and Brangwyn’s designs were to include some lettering as well. The unifying theme of the decorative program was to be 'New Frontiers', encompassing aspects of modern society, including science, labor, education, travel, communication, humanitarianism, finance and spirituality.
Brangwyn’s commission, which he received in 1932 with the final product installed in December of 1933, was for four large-scale murals, each measuring 17 by 25 feet, which still decorate the entrance hall and elevator bays along the south corridor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Brangwyn was assigned to interpret four themes around ‘man’s relationship to society and his fellow man’ and each of the murals bears the artist’s interpretations of these themes as their title: Man Laboring, Man the Creator, Man the Master, and Man’s Ultimate Destiny. Brangwyn did not produce the canvases in situ, but instead worked on them in a room at the Brighton Pavilion, as his studio in Ditchling, Sussex, about 50 miles south of London, was not large enough for him to paint them there. They were then transported to New York by steamer for installation. Sadly, Brangwyn never saw the finished murals in situ in New York. The present work and the following lot are studies for the second and third of Brangwyn’s murals from the series – Man The Creator and Man The Master.
The present work is a large-scale study for Man The Creator, which was Brangwyn’s interpretation on the theme of ‘man’s family relationships.’ This work is clearly a study in the final stages of preparation for the mural, with the foremost central figurative group produced at their full scale, though with slightly less detail than is found in the finished mural. Brangwyn focused a great deal of his preparation for this mural on the two female figures – the first the seated female nude seen from the back in the foreground, which was posed for by Joy Sinden. This figure was studied from life and through the aid of a photograph, which the artist used a great deal through his artistic process. The second female figure can be found holding the baby on the left side of the present study. Brangwyn had made an offhand comment while working on the murals that he could not find a model capable of representing Eve among the ‘flat-chested, narrow-hipped products of modernity’ and this was seized upon by the press, who breathlessly reported on the search. Finally, the 19-year-old model, Celia James of Brighton, was discovered by accident while she was at the cinema. She ultimately appeared in both the present work and in Man Laboring, the first work in the series, as Eve.
The text in the final version of the composition reads: ‘Man The Creator and Master of the Tool. Strengthening the Foundations and Multiplying the Comforts of his Abiding Place.’ As the second work in the series, it illustrates man’s progress from Eden to large-scale agriculture capable of supporting a community. As with the other murals, the work is full of rich and occasionally humorous detail which rewards the observant viewer – in the finished mural to the right of the seated female nude a baby can be found lying on top of the profusion of gourds and root vegetables, his legs in the air.
We are grateful to Dr. Libby Horner for confirming the authenticity of this work, which will be included in her Sir Frank Brangwyn catalogue raisonné, currently in preparation.
The then-RCA Building, now 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the complex’s centerpiece, opened in the spring of 1933. Preparing for the building’s opening, Junior originally approached Picasso and Matisse about decorations for the lobby, both of whom declined to participate in the project. Sir Frank Brangwyn, José Maria Sert and Diego Rivera were subsequently chosen to create the building’s murals, though Rivera’s mural was later replaced over a dispute about his inclusion of a figure of Lenin. All three artists were instructed to create their murals on canvas with the figures en grisaille and Brangwyn’s designs were to include some lettering as well. The unifying theme of the decorative program was to be 'New Frontiers', encompassing aspects of modern society, including science, labor, education, travel, communication, humanitarianism, finance and spirituality.
Brangwyn’s commission, which he received in 1932 with the final product installed in December of 1933, was for four large-scale murals, each measuring 17 by 25 feet, which still decorate the entrance hall and elevator bays along the south corridor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Brangwyn was assigned to interpret four themes around ‘man’s relationship to society and his fellow man’ and each of the murals bears the artist’s interpretations of these themes as their title: Man Laboring, Man the Creator, Man the Master, and Man’s Ultimate Destiny. Brangwyn did not produce the canvases in situ, but instead worked on them in a room at the Brighton Pavilion, as his studio in Ditchling, Sussex, about 50 miles south of London, was not large enough for him to paint them there. They were then transported to New York by steamer for installation. Sadly, Brangwyn never saw the finished murals in situ in New York. The present work and the following lot are studies for the second and third of Brangwyn’s murals from the series – Man The Creator and Man The Master.
The present work is a large-scale study for Man The Creator, which was Brangwyn’s interpretation on the theme of ‘man’s family relationships.’ This work is clearly a study in the final stages of preparation for the mural, with the foremost central figurative group produced at their full scale, though with slightly less detail than is found in the finished mural. Brangwyn focused a great deal of his preparation for this mural on the two female figures – the first the seated female nude seen from the back in the foreground, which was posed for by Joy Sinden. This figure was studied from life and through the aid of a photograph, which the artist used a great deal through his artistic process. The second female figure can be found holding the baby on the left side of the present study. Brangwyn had made an offhand comment while working on the murals that he could not find a model capable of representing Eve among the ‘flat-chested, narrow-hipped products of modernity’ and this was seized upon by the press, who breathlessly reported on the search. Finally, the 19-year-old model, Celia James of Brighton, was discovered by accident while she was at the cinema. She ultimately appeared in both the present work and in Man Laboring, the first work in the series, as Eve.
The text in the final version of the composition reads: ‘Man The Creator and Master of the Tool. Strengthening the Foundations and Multiplying the Comforts of his Abiding Place.’ As the second work in the series, it illustrates man’s progress from Eden to large-scale agriculture capable of supporting a community. As with the other murals, the work is full of rich and occasionally humorous detail which rewards the observant viewer – in the finished mural to the right of the seated female nude a baby can be found lying on top of the profusion of gourds and root vegetables, his legs in the air.
We are grateful to Dr. Libby Horner for confirming the authenticity of this work, which will be included in her Sir Frank Brangwyn catalogue raisonné, currently in preparation.