Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 15

Art Deco Bronze Sculpture of Adam and Eve by Lee Lawrie, signed LAWRIE 25

$32,000
£24,572.93
€28,189.01
CA$44,963.75
A$50,356.57
CHF 26,275.23
MX$615,083.83
NOK 334,297.41
SEK 315,115.37
DKK 210,371.16

About the Item

Adam and Eve, 1925 Lost wax bronze. 62cm high (base: 85x40cm). Signed on lower right edge of self-base: LAWRIE 25. German born Lee Lawrie, a pupil of Augustus Saint Gaudens, was one of the best known and most respected architectural sculptors of the American Art Deco Movement. His work enhanced many of the major American Art Deco buildings of the 1920s and 30s, including the Harkness Memorial Tower at Yale, the National Academy of Sciences, Washington D.C., City Hall, Saint Paul, Minnesota, the Peace Memorial at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the Louisiana State Capitol, and a series of reliefs for the Capitol Building, Washington D.C. His masterwork, the colossal Atlas for Rockefeller Center (located on Fifth Avenue, facing Saint Patrick’s Cathedral), is one of the most imposing monuments of that city. An influential teacher, he instructed at both Yale and Harvard Universities. Lee Lawrie was an urban sculptor par excellence. His figures, groups and reliefs, elegantly structured and thoughtfully conceived, perfectly suit their settings and are representative style of the age. Lawrie authored very few small scale sculptures. As his large-scale works are almost always integral elements of the historical landmarks they embellish, his work rarely appears on the market. The present group updates the biblical legend of Adam and Eve to a Cubo-Modernist idiom. The extreme angle of Eve’s head is a classical conceit, where the temptress uses ingenious wiles to seduce and disarm. It was often employed in medieval representations of Salome, whose nubile agility in the Dance of the Seven Veils is accompanied by an exaggerated tilt of the head. Locked in tight embrace, little does Adam suspect that the apple, artfully presented in Eve's left hand, will lead to original sin and mankind's fall from grace. In formal terms, The complex interlacing of the protagonists’ limbs, hands and heads, forms a quasi abstract geometrical structure independent of figurative connotations. In Rodinesque fashion, the figures emerge in pyramidal form from the “matter” of which they are composed. A series of striated rectangles perhaps suggests an urban landscape, The Modern Eden, Manhattan. Or perhaps the conglomeration of angular forms denotes a source of energy, a dynamo. Whatever the case, Lawrie clearly shows us Eden before the fall: the apple has not yet been tasted. This aspect of the artist’s conception takes on a prophetic significance, given the fact that it was executed in 1925, shortly before the Great Depression. Lawries Adam and Eve is a rare and highly successful example of American allegorical sculpture of the 1920s by one of its best protagonists and exemplary of the essential goal of the Art-Déco movement: the revitalisation of Classical traditions through a Modernist vision.
  • Creator:
    Lee Lawrie (Sculptor)
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 24.4 in (61.98 cm)Width: 33.5 in (85.09 cm)Depth: 16 in (40.64 cm)
  • Style:
    Art Deco (Of the Period)
  • Materials and Techniques:
    Bronze,Cast
  • Place of Origin:
  • Period:
  • Date of Manufacture:
    1925
  • Condition:
    Wear consistent with age and use.
  • Seller Location:
    Spencertown, NY
  • Reference Number:
    Seller: MDL 1stDibs: LU1620240228852

More From This Seller

View All
Continental Bronze Figure of Gagged Justice, 18th Century
Located in Spencertown, NY
Continental bronze figure of Gagged Justice, 18th century. Bronze on marble base.
Category

Antique 18th Century European Neoclassical Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

Northern European Carved Limewood Gentleman, 19th Century
Located in Spencertown, NY
The carved figure with fur hat and muff, seated on a log and standing before a fire.
Category

Antique Mid-19th Century German Victorian Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Wood

Art Nouveau Gilt Bronze Jardiniere, circa 1900
Located in Spencertown, NY
The rectangular planter with stylized flowers repeated on all four sides. Probably French or Belgian. Wear to gilding.
Category

Early 20th Century French Art Nouveau Planters and Jardinieres

Materials

Bronze

Pair of Terracotta Lions, after Canova, 19th Century
Located in Spencertown, NY
The pair of recumbent lions facing towards each other.
Category

Antique 19th Century English Grand Tour Animal Sculptures

Materials

Terracotta

Terracotta Bust of Comte d'artois, by Fernand Cian, Early 20th Century
By Fernando Ciancianaini
Located in Spencertown, NY
The bust signed "Fernand Cian, Paris, 1776" and below with "Comte d'Artois" with turned yellow marble socle.
Category

Early 20th Century French Louis XVI Busts

Materials

Terracotta

Two Terracotta Lions with Shields, French, Mid-18th Century
Located in Spencertown, NY
Possibly designs for Chenets.
Category

Antique 1750s French Rococo Sculptures and Carvings

Materials

Terracotta

You May Also Like

Art Deco Statue, Bronze, Czech Republic, Original Condition, 1920s
Located in Brandys nad Labem, Středočeský kraj
Bronzed Statue Material: Ceramic bronze Source: Czech - Art Deco Period: 1920-1929.  
Category

Vintage 1920s French Art Deco Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

"L'Effort, " Large Art Deco Bronze with Nude Males in Common Cause
By Joseph Witterwulghe
Located in Philadelphia, PA
One of the most powerful depictions of the male nude we have ever offered, "L'Effort" was sculpted by Joseph Witterwulghe, a Belgian sculptor, in the late 1920s. The sculptor studied...
Category

Vintage 1920s Belgian Art Deco Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

Modern Figurative Sculpture Embracing Couple
By Henry Moore, Austin Productions
Located in Miami, FL
An eye-catching figurative sculpture of a kissing couple in the style of Henry Moore. This piece is made from hand-cast and hand-finished Durastone, which is a special formulation ...
Category

20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Stone

"Pulling A Soldier to Safety", Large Art Deco War Memorial Bronze by De Lue
By Donald De Lue
Located in Philadelphia, PA
Extraordinarily powerful and poignant, this sculpture depicts a powerful nude helmeted soldier carrying and pulling his brother to safety after a serious injury on the battlefield. ...
Category

Vintage 1950s American Art Deco Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

20th Century Sculpture "Adam & Eve"
Located in Stockbridge, GA
20th century sculpture ''Adam & Eve'', this work is done with concrete stone and signed under.
Category

Late 20th Century French Primitive Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Concrete

Bronze Erotic Human Sculpture Home Décor Busts Antique Standing Couple Figure
Located in Wembley, GB
The sculpture is modelled as a nude man and woman embracing, 35cm high, each signed R Cameron Like Asian Yin and Yang, this large sculpture merges masculine Renaissance and mythologi...
Category

Antique Early 1900s Swedish Art Deco Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Metal, Bronze