I am an independent researcher, author, photographer, lecturer, with singular focus of the life and art of the obscure, forgotten or generally unheard of 20thCentury architectural sculptor, Lee Oskar Lawrie, (1877-1963).  A native of Lincoln, Nebraska, my formal education includes a bachelor’s degree in in Political Science with minors in English and History, from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a paralegal certificate and a master's degree in Legal Studies from Texas State University, in San Marcos, Texas.  The research and writing skills I picked up in grad school, and in over two decades in policy analysis and legal research, have enabled me to pursue original research in art and architectural history, with respect to Lawrie’s enormous, yet largely unrecognized legacy as a giant of 20thCentury American art.  

I have always been captivated by all things Art Deco, but especially by its architecture.  On my first trip to Manhattan, in 2000, I spent a few days roaming around City, marveling at, and photographing its Art Deco architecture, and it was on this visit that I first toured one of the top, select, few magnificent examples of Art Deco architecture; Rockefeller Center.  It was there where I first observed the Atlas, and was informed that the same sculptor was also credited with the powerful, muted polychromed friezes on the façade of 30 Rockefeller Plaza.  

Never before had I seen such powerful and dramatic, sculpture as the group of Wisdom, Sound and Light.  And when the tour guide informed us that these works were created by Lee Lawrie. Being a Nebraskan, I was aware that the Sower atop the Nebraska State Capitol was credited to Lawrie.  But at the time, that was all I had known about him, was that he’d done that single statue on the tallest building in my hometown. 

In that instant, I realized that although I’d never heard of him, he must have been highly esteemed and famous, outside of Nebraska, and that he was clearly superbly talented; enough so, to have been chosen to work on Rockefeller Center. And just as quickly, I began to wonder how my home state had managed to land an artist whose work was that worthy. So this became a mystery to me. How had he, the State and the Capitol, come together, out on the middle of the Great Plains, in a rural state, and in a time and place when farmers were still largely using horses and mules.

I perform original “field research,” and my educational and professional background has equipped me with the skills necessary to venture into libraries and archives, documenting original materials, correspondence, 1920s and 1930s newspaper and magazine articles, none of which is conveniently located in a single site.  Instead, there are shards of it like broken glass; with some in New York, some in Los Angeles, some in Washington, and cities here in there where he worked.  Stranger still, is considering the sheer volume of his work, that in more than half a century since his passing, there haven’t been more than a couple of scholastic theses written about his work, and again, what study has been done about his work has been piecemeal, few and in pieces scattered far and wide; and in between. 

But as one with either the blessing or curse of having a curious nature, I love the discovery of works commonly seen, but seldom identified as originating from just one person.  He was a virtual geyser of creativity, whose career spanned seven decades, and beyond our coasts.  Lawrie never left a catalog raisonné behind, (a list of his works,) so the quest to identify and credit as much of his work as possible, while not infinite, information about it is all over, just not consolidated.  Consequently, I will be lucky if I live long enough to locate all of it, and help create the legacy that more than 50 years after his death, has never materialized.  There is no shortage of clues to where it all lies.  But I feel very fortunate, indeed, to have located a topic to ignite my passion for his work, and that I’ve already found more of it than anyone else has ever previously documented.  I’m on it.