Courthouse Sculptor Lee Lawrie Paul D

Stanford Newel, Proposal Rock, and Newell Park Widows Newell Park Celebrates Its Centennial

Winter 2009 Volume 43, Number 4 Page 11

Courthouse Sculptor Lee Lawrie Paul D. Nelson —Page 3

Two of Lee Lawrie’s architectural sculptures, Liberty (top) and The People, on the façade of the St. Paul City Hall and Ramsey County Courthouse, Fourth Street entrance. Photo courtesy of Paul D. Nelson. RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY RAMSEY COUNTY Executive Director Priscilla Farnham Founding Editor (1964–2006) Virginia Brainard Kunz Editor Hıstory John M. Lindley Volume 43, Number 4 Winter 2009 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY the mission statement of the ramsey county historical society BOARD OF DIRECTORS adopted by the board of directors on December 20, 2007: J. Scott Hutton The Ramsey County Historical Society inspires current and future generations Past President Thomas H. Boyd to learn from and value their history by engaging in a diverse program President of presenting, publishing and preserving. Paul A. Verret First Vice President Joan Higinbotham Second Vice President C O N T E N T S Julie Brady Secretary 3 Courthouse Sculptor Carolyn J. Brusseau Lee Lawrie Treasurer Norlin Boyum, Anne Cowie, Nancy Paul D. Nelson Randall Dana, Cheryl Dickson, Charlton Dietz, Joanne A. Englund, William Frels, 11 Stanford Newel, Proposal Rock, and Newell Park Widows Howard Guthmann, John Holman, Elizabeth Kiernat, Judith Frost Lewis, Rev. Kevin M. Newell Park Celebrates Its Centennial McDonough, Laurie M. Murphy, Richard H. Nichol­son, Marla Ordway, Marvin J. Pertzik, Krista Finstad Hanson Jay Pfaender, Ralph Thrane, Richard Wilhoit. Directors Emeriti 20 Growing Up in St. Paul W. Andrew Boss The Teen Years and OLP George A. Mairs Richard T. Murphy Sr. Susanne Sebesta Heimbuch EDITORIAL BOARD Anne Cowie, chair, James B. Bell, Publication of Ramsey County History is supported in part by a gift from Thomas H. Boyd, John Diers, John Milton, Clara M. Claussen and Frieda H. Claussen in memory of Henry H. Cowie Jr. Debra Mitts-Smith, Laurie M. Murphy, and by a contribution from the late Reuel D. Harmon Paul D. Nelson, Richard H. Nicholson, Jay Pfaender, David Riehle, G. Richard Slade, Steve Trimble, Mary Lethert Wingerd. HONORARY ADVISORY BOARD A Message from the Editorial Board William Fallon, William Finney, Robert S. Hess, George Latimer, Joseph S. Micallef, ow often do we drive past a familiar scene and fail to appreciate the history Marvin J. Pertzik, James Reagan, Rosalie E. Wahl. Hbehind it? In this issue, three writers take us on a tour of places we think we know but whose rich stories are rarely told. Paul Nelson gives an in-depth look at RAMSEY COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Lee Lawrie’s architectural sculptures on the exterior surfaces of the St. Paul City Commissioner Jan Parker, chair Commissioner Tony Bennett Hall and Ramsey County Courthouse. More famous for his artwork at Rockefeller Commissioner Toni Carter Center in New York City, Lawrie’s Courthouse sculptures combine graceful forms Commissioner Jim McDonough Commissioner Rafael Ortega with a sense of purpose as they illustrate concepts such as industry, justice, and Commissioner Victoria Reinhardt liberty. Nelson will be giving a talk and guiding a tour of St. Paul architectural Commissioner Janice Rettman sculpture on March 29 at the St. Paul Central Library—join him if you can. Julie Kleinschmidt, manager, Susanne Sebesta Heimbuch takes us back to the early 1960s with her evocative Ramsey County look at Catholic education at Our Lady of Peace High School, which occupied the Ramsey County History is published quarterly current site of William Mitchell College of Law. And Krista Finstad Hanson revis- by the Ramsey County Historical Society, its the story of Newell Park, which for a time in the 1920s and ’30s was a neighbor- 323 Landmark Center, 75 W. Fifth Street, St. Paul, MN 55102 (651-222-0701). Printed in hood gathering place buoyed by vigorous community support. Thanks to the ef- U.S.A. Copy­right © 2009, Ram­sey County forts of many, today this revitalized park serves as a jewel in the Hamline-Midway Historical­ Society.­ ISSN Number 0485-9758. neighborhood. Explore your county’s roots, and discover new perspectives from All rights reserved. No part of this publica- tion may be reprinted or otherwise repro- your armchair! duced without written permission from the publisher. The Society assumes no respon- sibility for state­ments made by contributors. Anne Cowie, Fax 651-223-8539; ­e-mail address: admin@ Chair, Editorial Board rchs.com; web site address: www.rchs.com

2 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY Courthouse Sculptor Lee Lawrie Paul D. Nelson “ ision of Peace” is not the only sculpture at the St. Paul City Hall and Ramsey County Courthouse in downtown St. Paul. It may seem to Vbe—Carl Milles’s enormous, spectacular, and iconic figure has a way of grabbing just about all the artistic attention the public has to give. In fact, though, there are eleven other major carvings in or on the building on Kellogg Boulevard: the second floor bust of Jose Martí; Albert Stewart’s six wonderful, main-floor bronze elevator doors; and four large exterior relief works—the sub- Top of the page: The People, located above ject of this article—by the greatest artist to work on the building, Lee Lawrie. the Fourth Street entrance to the St. Paul City Hall and Ramsey County Courthouse. Photo courtesy of the author. Above: Not many people today know Lee the Bok Carillon Tower in Florida, Atlas, one of fifteen Lee Lawrie works at Lawrie’s name, nor was he much known Rockefeller Center (where he did much Rockefeller Center, New York City. Photo to the public in his lifetime, 1877–1963. more than Atlas), and his masterpiece, courtesy of Gregory Harm. But during the first half of the twentieth the Nebraska State Capitol in Lincoln.1 century, Lawrie was one of the busiest While at the peak of his powers, and Columbian Exposition, otherwise known and most successful of American artists, just before beginning Rockefeller Center, and hundreds of thousands of people still Lawrie found time in 1931 and 1932 for as the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. enjoy his work today. His most famous a minor commission, the Ramsey County This was the famous White City, (but not best) piece is the statue of Atlas Courthouse in St. Paul.2 European classical architectural forms at Rockefeller Center in New York City. Lee Oskar Lawrie was born in Prussia recreated (often magnificently) on the re- Atlas is not at all typical of Lee claimed swampland north of downtown. Lawrie works; he did comparatively few in 1877 and came to the United States The sculpture was imitation European free-standing statues. His specialty and in 1881. At age fourteen, living with his passion was architectural sculpture, the mother in Chicago, a two-word sign, too, in the style known as Beaux Arts, fancy term for carving on buildings. “Boy Wanted,” introduced him to his based on classical forms but some- His architectural commissions were fate, his muse, his life. It led him to a times a little ostentatious. In Minnesota many and celebrated: the Los Angeles Pub­ job with a local sculptor, and then to the “Father of Waters” sculpture at the lic Library, the Louisiana State Capitol, the sculpture workshops of the World’s Minneapolis City Hall is an excellent

RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY 3 ­example. This is the first style that Lawrie an architect who changed master­fully learned but not the last. with the times. After Chicago Lawrie, while still a In 1919 the Nebraska legislature re- teenager, bounced around the East, work- solved to build a new state capitol, and ing as an assistant and apprentice to sev- opened a design competition. Goodhue won eral sculptors, Augustus St. Gaudens the it and insisted that Lawrie be his sculptor. most prominent of them. In 1895 he met The Nebraskans demanded plenty in the a rising young architect named Bertram design: magnificence, functionality, mo- Grosvenor Goodhue, whose specialty dernity, and history. Goodhue provided at the time was churches in the Gothic the first three; for depiction of the history, style. Gothic is what most people see in he relied on Lawrie. For substance, both their minds when they think of the great relied, however, on Professor Hartley B. cathedrals of Europe like Notre Dame— Alexander of the University of Nebraska, pointed arches, tall, narrow spires, rose a consultant on the project. windows, and lots of statues. An excel- The Nebraska capitol rejects the neo- lent local example, though unadorned, is classical style of almost all U.S. capi- Central Lutheran Church in downtown tols, starting the with national capitol in Minneapolis. Washington, D.C.: no dome, no columns, With Goodhue Lawrie mastered the Lee Lawrie. Photo courtesy of the Library of no reference at all to Greek or Roman Gothic and found his area of genius, ar- Congress. architectural models. Minnesotans are chitectural sculpture. Gothic churches rightly proud of Cass Gilbert’s marvelous required endless iterations of the human elaboration of the familiar capitol design (a form—Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the sented a problem of scale. Throughout Beaux Arts style, commissioned in 1895), saints—to fill their countless portals, history sculpture had been placed where but there is nothing original about it. The niches, chapels, and altars. This was adorn- the unaided eye could (more or less) com- design’s clear Greek and Roman lineage is ment with a purpose, beauty designed fortably appreciate it. But, what place supposed to remind people of the ancient to instruct the congregants (who in the could outdoor sculpture have on a build- and European origins of democracy. The original Gothic era did not read Scripture) ing thee hundred feet tall? Nebraskans, rulers of a young state in a in the ideas and the personalities of the One answer, of course, was to dispense new civilization, insisted on American faith. In the Gothic style architecture and with architectural sculpture ­altogether. styles and references in their new capitol. sculpture complemented one another in Another was to search for a new approach In Nebraska’s capital city of Lincoln, the the service of a greater purpose. This to fit the new times. Lee Lawrie had huge space Goodhue had to work with en- conception of sculpture took hold of Lee the good fortune to possess that artistic abled him to achieve functionality, moder- Lawrie’s imagination and never let go. All temperament that thrives within narrow nity, and magnificence by a low, massive, the rest of his career, including his work limits, like Shakespeare’s poetry within blocky, and spacious base with a skyscraper in St. Paul, he strove to have his sculptural the confines of the sonnet. He wrote, “I tower in the center. The lines are clean and work announce and enhance the nature of think there is more opportunity for artis- the forms geometric, like Nebraska itself. buildings of which they were part. tic thought in meeting the resistance that The clean lines presented sculptor Lawrie, This goal was straightforward in a modern building puts up than in purely charged with portraying Nebraska history churches, where their purpose was clear aesthetic sculpture.”3 Companion good in stone, with a fundamental challenge: on and the forms well known. The task was fortune lay in his alliance with Goodhue, flat surfaces, where does sculpture go? In more difficult with commercial and gov- ernment buildings, especially when the skyscraper came along. The invention of the skyscraper presented architects and ar- chitectural sculptors with unprecedented challenges. For architects, the challenge lay in how to go very tall and incorporate both function and beauty. For sculptors the challenge was per- haps greater. As buildings rose skyward, the style of design went simple: clean lines, great masses, basic geometric forms. Where did sculpture, so recently rather busy and ornate, fit in? More pro- The Last Supper, St. John’s Episcopal Church, West Hartford, Conn. Photo reproduced from foundly, perhaps, the tall building pre- Lee Lawrie, Joseph F. Morris, ed.

4 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY culture and by extension civilization, his Street doorway to be “the main monu- scattered seeds giving rise to life, com- mental entrance to the building.” They munity, prosperity. This is Goodhue’s called for a five- by eight-foot inscription and Lawrie’s combined masterpiece, ar- panel above the door, flanked by four- by chitecture and sculpture united.4 five-foot panels of relief sculpture. Above Like the Nebraska statehouse, the these, the Suggestions called for “a figure new St. Paul City Hall/Ramsey County of Liberty conceived as the ‘Rights of the Courthouse pointedly rejected older styles Citizen.’” It was to be 3.5 feet wide and 11 and embraced the new. It is a skyscraper, feet tall, holding an open book inscribed all flat surfaces and basic shapes, a low on the right with the words “Vox Populi, base with a central tower. symbolizing the sources of sovereignty in Unlike Nebraska, sculpture was not the civic and community government, and inherent in the original plans. Though upon the left hand “Jus Civile,” emblematic sculpture may have been contemplated of the courts and their interpretation of the by the commission in charge of the build- fundamental law of the community.” The Nebraska State Capitol, with Lawrie’s ing, and by the architects (Holabird and Lawrie carried out these directions to The Sower atop. Postcard photograph cour- tesy of Gregory Harm. Root of Chicago and Ellerbe Associates the letter, though “Liberty” was placed of St. Paul) too, no mention of it appears not directly above the door, but much in the records until 1931, two years into higher. Standing outside the Fourth Street one of his answers we see the template for the planning. entrance, one has to look sharply (and un- what he did in St. Paul. Lawrie was chosen, apparently without comfortably) upward to see it. Rather than build carvings onto the controversy or debate, on November 25, For the inscription and lateral panels building, Lawrie cut the carvings into it. 1931, on the architects’ recommendation. the Commission offered a choice of three The reliefs, never deep, preserve the es- inscriptions, four lines of fourteen to sev- sential flatness of the exterior. The story enteen letters each, and reproduced here of Nebraska history, going back to Magna as in the original document: Carta then through the Founders and on to statehood, is told in a series of horizon- JUSTICE IS A CON- tal panels—the signing of the Declaration STANT AND PERPET- of Independence, President Lincoln issu- UAL WILL TO RENDER ing the Emancipation Proclamation, and Solon, Nebraska State Capitol. Photo UNTO EACH HIS DUE so on, familiar scenes to all. The com- courtesy of Gregory Harm. position is static, as the Gothic church LAW IS THE RAMPART compositions Lawrie had done so often OF THE CITY; LAWS tended to be. In these panels, however, On that date the building was already ARE THE REGISTERS the figures are blockier, plainer, less re- partially built. Lawrie’s bid, $13,750, was OF THE PUBLIC WILL alistic than in his Gothic works, easier to accepted a few weeks later. Though one see and understand from a distance. has to assume that Lawrie and the archi- LIBERTY IS THE RIGHT The panels in the Nebraska carvings tects consulted from time to time, there is OF INTELLIGENCE TO are static except for one, the centerpiece, no evidence that Lawrie ever visited St. ASSUME ITS OWN RE- the frieze over the main entrance. Here Paul. He lived and worked in New York. SPONSIBILITIES. we have motion. Called “The Pioneers,” That architectural sculpture was an this one shows a band of Nebraska pio- after­thought in the design of the City There were two be two flanking panels. neers striding (or maybe trudging) across Hall/County Courthouse is suggested One was to symbolize WISE COUNSEL, the prairie, all but their guide (modeled by this: When dignitaries and the public that is, “the administration of public on Buffalo Bill Cody) looking resolutely came to see the building at its ceremonial welfare by the City,” in the form of an forward. Though idealized, these figures opening, December 17, 1932, there was no “Indian-American council;” the other are realistically done. sculpture to see. Lawrie’s models for the STRAIGHT JUSTICE, symbolized by One can see what Goodhue and Lawrie courthouse were not accepted until two a frontier justice of the peace. Maybe it were up to. The historical scenes are re- days later. Carving began later still. was all the hyphens; Lawrie responded to lentlessly horizontal and earthbound, like The Courthouse Commission did not these suggestions by ignoring them.5 Nebraska. The background events are tell the artist what to carve; instead, it ad- There would be no inscription. He filled static, but Nebraska itself, expressed in opted “Suggestions for Themes Exterior the space above the doors instead with a “The Pioneers,” is in motion, dynamic, Stone Sculptoring.” Lawrie followed street scene he called “The People.” The alive. Above all, atop the central tower, some of them. similarities with his Nebraska over-the- stands “The Sower,” the symbol of agri- The Suggestions proclaimed the Fourth entrance frieze, “The Pioneers,” are so

RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY 5 On the south the Commission suggested two relief panels, one on each side of the doors. On the left, the “County” side, im- ages suggesting the Life of the Fields, “perhaps symbols of the old St. Paul land- ing with the early flour and lumber mills, with figures symbolizing law as protec- tress of the life of the community as typi- fied by childhood, youth, maturity.” On the right, or City side, “a civic goddess with mural crown, and in the background the skyline of the city, with secondary figures representing the early builders of the city, the Woodsman, Furtrader, Pioneer, Soldier.”6 Lawrie responded in a general way to these suggestions. If one can say there are city and county sides, he switched them, putting city on the left. There is a goddess with a crown, and a skyline (featuring the new city hall), but no other human figures; instead, early industries are represented by the geared wheels, anvil, and barrel. The goddess bears the symbols of author- Top of the page: The Pioneers, Nebraska State Capitol. Photo courtesy of Gregory Harm. Above: ity and law; an open book symbolizes The People, St. Paul City Hall and Ramsey County Courthouse. Photo courtesy of the author. education. On the right, or county side, another goddess figure stands heroically, numerous that one is tempted to conclude the apex; in St. Paul, “The People” at bearing symbols of agricultural bounty. In that the artist imitated himself. The two the base and “Liberty” at the apex. In St. show the same sense of movement, though Paul the artist’s message seems clear— the urban scene is more crowded and hec- from the people, absorbed in their daily tic; the figures walk with the same tread, tasks, arises their collective practical- their gazes downcast at the same angle. In ity and wisdom, “Vox Populi” (voice of Nebraska the idealized pioneers represent the people), which becomes “Jus Civile,” the people of that rural state; in St. Paul the the fundamental law of the community. idealized street throng represents an urban Together they are embodied in the figure people. And Lawrie was careful to include “Liberty,” portrayed in severe classical a variety of classes, occupations, ages, and, form, a reference to its Greek and Roman with one African American, even races. origins. The contrast between the realis- There are important differences be- tic figures of “The People” and the nearly tween the panels too. The Nebraska frieze abstract “Liberty,” stands for the transfor- is full of local references—plants, ani- mation of the quotidian to the eternal. mals, tools, and Buffalo Bill. The St. Paul All residents of Ramsey County owe scene has no local anchor; it could be a thanks to Mr. Lawrie for preferring his street anywhere in the United States or own judgment to that of the Commission. Europe. In Nebraska Lawrie worked with Imagine the embarrassment today of hav- the architect from the earliest stages of ing an Indian-American council—a treaty planning, with careful attention to local council?—with its whiff of theft and co- detail; in St. Paul Lawrie came in late and ercion, adorning the seat of government never had the same intensity of engage- under the banner, “Wise Counsel.” ment with the site. That was the north-side entrance. The The two buildings do share a simi- south, then Third Street, now Kellogg lar relationship between major sym- Boulevard, entrance was always con- bols. Visually, the elements form a very ceived as less important, probably be- Liberty, St. Paul City Hall and Ramsey tall, narrow triangle. In Lincoln, “The cause the lively downtown of the early County Courthouse. Photo courtesy of Pioneers” at the base, “The Sower” at 1930s had most of its bustle to the north. Maureen McGinn.

6 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY history of his art. (His lack of schooling did not prevent Yale—where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1908—and Harvard from hiring him as an instructor.) He placed his work in a tradition going back to the great civilizations of Egypt. These panels have some delightful de- tails. On the City Side, note the match be- tween the hair of the goddess and the pro- file of the courthouse, and the diagonal line formed by her staff and the spokes of the wheel. On the County Side, Lawrie played with the hair again, this time pairing it with the trail of smoke from the locomo- tive. And here there are interplays of arcs: the sickle, the cornucopia, the sunrise, and the horn. Both compositions are rhythmic and balanced, with a hint of humor. City Side, St. Paul City Hall and Ramsey It is commonplace today to think of County Side, St. Paul City Hall and Ramsey County Courthouse. Photo courtesy of the all art as the artist’s self-expression, but County Courthouse. Photo courtesy of the author. this is a new idea in human history and author. one that Lee Lawrie rejected. His goal al- ways was to express not himself but the the background, there are tall pines and purpose and function of the building. In courthouse sculptures were completed, a hurrying freight train. The skyline and 1934 he wrote, “It is the mural sculptor’s though it was probably in 1933. (The ac- pine forest are the only identifiably local business to see to it that his expression is tual carving was done by John Garatti, an visual references that Lawrie produced. consistently in accord with the idea of the Italian-born St. Paulite who also worked In style, Lawrie borrowed from the im- building, its time and place, as well as its on “Vision of Peace.”) We do not know ages of the ancient Middle East, which he design.” To Lawrie, that was the purpose how the public reacted to them. We do had learned about from his late mentor of his art (which he called “modern mural know how Lawrie wanted people to react: Goodhue. The stiff, heavily stylized god- sculpture”): to announce to the public, “As we go about and look at the ­buildings dess figures call to mind Egyptian and and to posterity, the nature of the building critically we can decide for ourselves Assyrian sculpture. Lawrie had very little of which his works were an integral part.7 whether the mural sculptures are merely formal education, but he had studied the We do not know exactly when the works of art in themselves, or whether they

Details There are four major pieces on the courthouse exterior, but the attentive visitor will notice several smaller pieces too, most prominently on the roofline of the east wing, along Wabasha Street. They look like symbols (they are), but of what?

The Commission The Commission The “unpainted wash- The Commission Lee Lawrie’s interpre- suggested calumets. wanted Scales of stand upon which wanted “mural crown, tation of “The North Lawrie instead gave Justice, and Lawrie Governor Ramsey emblematic of civic Star (symbol of the them the hive, symbol provided them. wrote the territorial society, Roman sword, state.)” of industry. procalmation.” emblem of St. Paul.”

All photos in “Details” courtesy of the author.

RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY 7 Lawrie’s Works n his lifetime, Lee Lawrie produced designed to give the reader a sense of his • Louisiana State Capitol, Baton Rouge, a great variety and great quantity of productivity and range of styles. Louisiana (1932) Iworks; some statuary, much more No one has yet compiled a complete • Rockefeller Center, New York City relief sculpture—Beaux Arts, Gothic, list of his creations, and that is beyond (1933–1937) modernistic; some somber, some funny. the scope of this article. It will suffice • Wichita Art Institute, Wichita, Kansas A Lee Lawrie tour of the United States here to mention some of his noteworthy (1935) would cover a lot of ground: Providence, commissions. • Jefferson Annex to the Library of • Post Headquarters and Chapel, U.S. Mil­ Congress, Washington, D.C. (1938) itary Academy, West Point, N.Y. (1905) • Corn Products Research Center, Argo, • Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New Illinois (1945) York City (1913–1914) • St. Thomas’s Church, New York City (1917–1919)

Top: Cow Jumping Over the Moon, Los Angeles Public Library, Los Angeles, Calif. Photo from Sculpture by Lee Lawrie. Above: Screen from the Bok Carillon Tower, Lake Wales, Fla.

Top: South Dakota, St. Louis World’s Fair • Nebraska State Capitol, Lincoln, Top: Cane Cutter, Louisiana State Capitol, of 1903. Photo from Mark Bennitt, History Baton Rouge, La. Photo from S c u l p ­t u r e by of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (St. Nebraska (1920–1924) Lee Lawrie. Above: Wisdom Planning the Louis: Universal Exposition Publishing • National Academy of Sciences, Universe, Rockefeller Center, New York City. Co., 1905). This is the earliest known Washington, D.C. (1920–1924) Photo courtesy of Gregory Harm. image of a Lawrie work. Above: Angel of the Old Dispensation, Church of the • Los Angeles Public Library, (1923–1926) Heavenly Rest, New York City. Photo from • Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Building, Those looking for photographs of Sculpture by Lee Lawrie. Philadelphia (1927) Lawrie’s works should consult Christine • Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest, Roussel’s thoroughly beautiful volume, Rhode Island; West Point, Brooklyn, and New York City, (1929) The Art of Rockefeller Center (New York: Manhattan in New York; Philadelphia; W.W. Norton, 2006), and Gregory Harm’s Washington, D.C.; Florida; Louisiana; • Bok Carillon Tower, Lake Wales, Florida newly published Lee Lawrie’s Prairie Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; South Bend, (1929) Deco: History in Stone at the Nebraska Indiana; Chicago; Lincoln, Nebraska; • St. Paul City Hall/Ramsey County State Capitol (available at www.blurb St. Paul, and on to California. We offer Courthouse (1932) .com). But the world awaits a comprehen- here just a sampling of Lawrie’s work, • Pennsylvania Education Building (1932) sive appreciation of Lee Oskar Lawrie.

8 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY take their place as complements to their in North America. “The promise for the amples that still bring delight and amaze- surrounding architecture; whether they future is bright. It is not improbable that ment, but there are no new creations. In represent ideas foreign to the purposes the American mural sculptor will do for his prime—the era of his St. Paul work— of the building, or whether they make the his country what the Greek did for his— Lee Lawrie saw himself as the inheritor building’s purpose more articulate.” achieve what is not borrowed, but native.” and modernizer of an ancient tradition Just so, as much today as in 1933: The He was wrong. The Depression coincided that would continue forever. Instead, it visitor to the Ramsey County Courthouse with the advance of modernism in archi- died with him. His works, including the can decide for him or herself whether tecture, a movement that disdained deco- little-noticed St. Paul panels and details, Lee Lawrie’s sculptures are mere decora- ration. Henry-Russell Hitchcock Jr. and live on; examples, perhaps, of American tions, or expressions of the purpose of the Philip Johnson’s influential 1932 book, sculpture, “not borrowed, but native.”9 building, or something else. Do the four The International Style: Architecture main pieces form, with the design of the Since 1922, held as one of its three prin- Paul D. Nelson acknowledges and thanks building itself, a harmonious and interre- ciples of architecture the elimination of Gregory Harm for his encouragement, lated whole? Whether Lawrie succeeded all exterior sculpture. After Lee Lawrie his photography, and his work in pro- by his own measures, or not, he created completed Rockefeller Center (1937), his moting interest and appreciation of Lee in St. Paul the most thoughtful and subtle phone stopped ringing. By the end of the Lawrie. Nelson is a member of the RCHS architectural sculpture in the Twin Cities. decade he so despaired of working again Editorial Board and a frequent contribu- Based in part on the St. Paul pieces, critic that he had resigned himself to subsis- tor to Ramsey County History. His article Walter Agard wrote in his 1935 book, tence farming in Maryland. on the life and death of St. Paul’s Cen- The New Architectural Sculpture, that It never quite came to that; Lawrie tral Park won the Society’s 2006 Vir- “we may declare with conviction that worked intermittently as a sculptor and ginia Kunz Award. He and Sr. Joan Kain Lee Lawrie is the foremost architectural consultant until his death in 1963, but his recently published a second edition of sculptor in America.”8 art form did not survive him. In the United Rocky Roots (2007), a guide to the uses Writing in 1934, Lee Lawrie saw a States, architectural sculpture is dead. of ornamental and dimension stone on great future for architectural sculpture It is like the silent film; you can find ex- downtown St. Paul buildings.

Architectural Sculpture in the Twin Cities

rchitectural sculpture can be smaller frieze below the great circular the corner from it on the south side of found in St. Paul and Min­ window. The figures of St. Peter and St. Wabasha Street, high above the side- Aneapolis. There isn’t much, but Paul, flanking the window, complete walk. There, on the building’s façade, there is perhaps a little more than one the composition. These would not have the graceful figures of a piping Pan might think. You see it without really been to Lee Lawrie’s taste, but certainly and a dancing nymph signal what took seeing it. they met his base requirement of archi- place many years ago in the old Lowry tectural sculpture—that it announce the function of the building. The sculpture on St. Thomas More Church at Summit and Lexington av- enues in St. Paul stands squarely in the Gothic revival mode where Lawrie did so much of his own work. The work is beautiful, with rhythmic patterns The most prominent pieces, predict- and here and there ably, adorn the Cathedral in St. Paul. a hint of whimsy in Lounge. On University Avenue, a little There’s a rather florid frieze beneath the smaller figures. ways west of the Capitol, there is a single the point of the arch of the main (east There is noth- delightful panel on the Old Home Dairy facing) portico, depicting Jesus with ing downtown and Building. The image says it all. his disciples. This is an example of nothing in the Capitol complex that can Above the west-facing door of sculpture in the Beaux Arts tradition. be called architectural sculpture, except ­Geth­semane Church (905 Fourth Av- So too are the symbolic figures in the of course on the Courthouse, and around enue South) in downtown ­Minneapolis

RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY 9 terns and stylish, powerful eagle, all in fabulous Rainbow Stone from ­Morton, Minnesota. Two other d o w n t o w n Minneapolis there is a delightful tree with the ban- buildings stand ner, “A Place Which Was Named Geth- out for their use semane.” The Basilica of St. Mary (1600 of carving to announce their purpose. Hennepin Avenue) features a single The Armory (500–530 Sixth Street piece, Mary emerging from clouds. South) uses words and images with ap- The Rand Tower (527 Marquette Av- propriate forcefulness. enue), an Art Deco Holabird and Root The masterpiece is the old Farmers creation from 1929, features back to and Mechanics Bank (now the Westin back figures of Mercury, each crouch- Hotel at 520 Marquette Avenue). The ing against a wall and holding, or play- heroic figures that flank the main -en ing with, a model airplane. The message trance really could not be more per- 1942. The artist was Warren T. fect: cut in big blocks of Mankato- Mosman, head of the sculpture de- Kasota stone, they convey strength partment at the Minneapolis Institute and reliability, exactly what you want of Arts. His touch of genius is tucked in a bank, especially one built just away, around the corner (on the Sixth after the end of the Depression, in Street South side) and near the roof line. Once again, the image says it all.

has nothing to do with the building; its builder, Rufus Rand, was an amateur aviator. The red sandstone building next door sports Egyptian carvings around the entrance. The Qwest Building at 224 Fifth Street South (425 Second Av- enue South) makes the most stylish use of sculpture, with its ornamental pat- All photos in “Architectural Sculpture in the Twin Cities” courtesy of the author.

Endnotes 1. Enumeration of Lawrie’s works comes from a va- in Lee O. Lawrie, Modern Mural Sculpture (Pasedena, 6. “Suggestions for Themes Exterior Stone Sculptoring,” riety of sources: Timothy J. Garvey, Lee O. Lawrie: Calif.: Esto Publishing Co., 1934). in the files of the St. Paul City Hall-Ramsey County Classicism and American Culture, 1919–1954 3. Eric Scott McCready, “The Nebraska State Capitol: Courthouse Commission, MHS. Its Design, Background and Influence,” Nebraska (Minneapolis: Ph.D. dissertation, University of 7. Lawrie, Modern Mural Sculpture. Lawrie did not History 55, no. 3 (Fall 1974): 377. Minnesota, 1980); Lee Lawrie, Sculpture (Cleveland: deny the role of individual creativity, but to him it J.H. Jansen, 1936); Joseph F. Morris, ed., Lee Lawrie 4. Garvey, Lee O. Lawrie, 60–123; Charles H. came out in the service of a bigger purpose: “Although (Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 1955); Whitaker and Hartley B. Alexander, The Architectural no new ways of designing and modeling are available, and three web sites: Smithsonian Institution Art Sculpture of the State Capitol at Lincoln Nebraska (New York: American Institute of Architects, 1926). the personal characteristics that stamp each sculptor’s Inventories Catalog, http://siris-artinventories.si.edu, 5. Files of the St. Paul City Hall-Ramsey County work, when applied to an original theme and an archi- and www.leelwarie.com and www.bisonwerks.com, Courthouse Commission (call no. 113.J.5.6.F), maintained by the independent scholar Gregory tectural problem make it a creation.” Minnesota Historical Society (MHS); Ellerbe & Co. 8. Walter Agard, The New Architectural Sculpture Harm. No comprehensive list has yet been published, and Holabird and Root, “Saint Paul City Hall and though Mr. Harm is working on it. Ramsey County Courthouse,” American Architect (New York: Oxford University Press, 1935), 45. 2. Biographical information is from Garvey, Lee O. (July 1933); Pioneer Press, December 18, 1932, p. 1 9. Lawrie, Modern Mural Sculpture; Garvey, Lee O. Lawrie, 9–12. Lawrie’s views on sculpture are found (ceremonial opening). Lawrie, 260–282 (later years.)

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In 1909 someone named Clara, who lived on Capitol Avenue, sent a postcard (top right) of the Frog Pond that once existed near Hamline University to a friend in North Dakota. That Frog Pond was then located on the site of today’s Newell Park in St. Paul’s Hamline-Midway neighborhood. The postcard and the adjacent photo of Newell Park on a fall day in 2008 show just how much this park has changed in 100 years. Postcard courtesy of Steve Trimble; photo courtesy of Krista Finstad Hanson. For more on the centennial of Newell Park, see Krista Finstad Hanson’s article on page 11.