Many people will recognize this iconic image of “Prometheus” from Rockefeller Center. This giant gilt-bronze statue depicts the young Greek god who fashioned humankind from clay as well as stealing fire for mankind’s use.  Said to be the most photographed sculpture in all of New York,  I wonder how many know its maker, Paul Manship (1885-1966)?

Manship was born in Minnesota and went to art schools in Philadelphia and New York.  In 1909 he won the Rome Prize which allowed him an idyllic study at the American Academy in Rome until 1912.

This picture shows a typical fountain designed by Manship.  I love this insouciant toddler,  who lifts his head in pure joy while impishly  holding two pitiable frogs.  Despite his nudity, which could be excused both for the boy’s youth and for the figure’s obvious reliance on classical sculpture, work similar to this found a ready audience in American art circles of the pre-WWI  United States.

Under the spell of the Italy, Manship familiarized himself with the art of the world and was especially taken with Archaic (pre-classical)  Greek sculpture.

His own sculpture took on the characteristics of Archaic sculpture and he began treating classical subjects, such this gorgeous and completely new and vanguard treatment of “Europa and the Bull.”

The American art world to which Manship returned in 1912 was stuck aesthetically in the so-called “Beaux-Arts” tradition and was just beginning to feel the punch of the newer, more “modern” approach.  Sculptors were very much behind painters.  Manship’s post-Italy work, which was smooth, sleek and very simplified with highly elongated forms, caught the wave of the modernist aesthetic, while not upsetting the more conservative American approach.

The fact that Manship’s post-European bronze sculpture abstained abstraction made him a favorite with art collectors.  Today we see in his work the advent of what we now call Art Deco, as you can clearly see in this 1916 work entitled “Dancer and Gazelles.”

This is Manship’s “Diana of the Hunt”, showing the woman and her hound of classical mythology.  With work such as the ones pictured here, Manship not only established himself as a sculptor of note, but became one of the leading –and highly influential–figures of the established art life of the U.S.  His expertise and taste had a lasting impact on the 20th century American aesthetic, which is important to remember, for by the 1940s his own work can be seen to be quite conservative.

My own personal experience with Manship’s work really took shape while I was a visiting scholar in 1985 at the American Academy in Rome.  I was beyond fortunate to be a Chester Dale Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for three years starting in 1985 and, as a part of that lucky break, I spent three months in Rome in the fall of 1985.  Many mornings I sat in the out-door courtyard of the McKim, Meade and White building near the Aurelian Wall in Trastevere.

In the center of this wonderful building in this incredible setting was the fountain pictured above.  As I sat drinking cappuchino and planning my attack on the archives in the city of Rome for the day, week, or month, I would gaze at this Manship statue and listen to the soft play of water.  As I look back, I am so grateful for the vision the Academy’s founders had and the collaboration between architects and sculptors for providing future generations with such a setting in which to be inspired.  Thank you Paul Manship!