Lee Lawrie and The Central Portal

Lee Lawrie and the central portal of the west front began from this 1927 letter. After successfully completing a model for one of the statues for the portal, the Trustees of the Cathedral awarded the preparation of all models for the sculpture for the central portal of the west front of the Cathedral.

The following quote from the minutes of the Fabric Committee is provided by the Cathedral Archives.

Extract from The Fabric Committee minutes, May 24 1927: It was recommended that the Trustees adopt the following.

“RESOLVED, that Mr. Lee Lawrie be chosen to execute the sculpture of the Central Portal of the West Front at a total cost of $118,000 — models $67,000. Cutting 50,300.

“RESOLVED, that Mr. John Angel be chosen as the sculptor for the North and South Portals of the West Front at a cost of $98,000. –models $54,000 – cutting $44,600; and that a contract with him be made to furnish the models for the South Portal at a cost of $27,000.”

The Trustees proceeded to cause contracts to be issued to both men. Lawrie was advised of the award and responded to Cram and Ferguson:

Your letter of June 10th, telling me that Mr. Cram and the trustees have decided to entrust the sculpture of the Central Portal of the Cathedral to me, makes me feel very good. The work will be a joyous labor for me.

– Lee Lawrie

Below Lee Lawrie describes the subjects for the central portal as well as the Majestas above them and ancillary sculpture.

The Models

Here Tom Fedorek adds some commentary on the symbolism of the basestones. “Isaac – it appears to be the ram caught in a thicket. A reminder of how Isaac was almost sacrificed by his father Abraham. An angel directing Abraham’s attention to the ram saved Issac. At Chartres, on the porch of the north transept — the exemplar for this portal — Abraham is depicted with a juvenile Isaac and there’s a ram on the basestone beneath them. Joseph is easy — it’s a papyrus plant signifying Egypt.

“As for Moses — It looks like a city gate or a fortress or a temple. None of which make any sense for the Moses narrative. He and the children of Israel were wandering in the wilderness, where there weren’t any cities or temples. Moses built a tabernacle, a kind of tent, to house the ark of the covenant. There wouldn’t be a permanent temple for many generations after Moses.”

The date of the above image is unknown. Presumably it is from the early or mid 1930’s. The three figures modeled represent half of the statues for the north jamb. It is also unknown if Lawrie created others. There were no additional images.

Other West Front Models

There are, however, additional images in the archives representing Lawrie’s sculptural models of a very different style. A style closer to the Art-Deco work at Rockefeller Center than to the traditional figure work shown of Isaac, Joseph and Moses. They appear below:

These models may have been for the upper rank of figures above the prophets or they may have been modeled for the archivolts. Again, Tom Fedorek identifies the symbolism of these figures.

“The trio of angels are from the Book of Revelation, aka the Apocalypse. The giveaway is the first angel’s Greek inscription APOKALYPTON. The angel with the stone appears in Rev 18:21-24: ‘Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, So shall Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence…’ The angel with the sickle appears in Rev 14:17-20 ‘And another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle…So the angel swung his sickle on the earth and gathered up the vintage of the earth, and threw it into the great wine press of the wrath of God…”

Fast Forward 10 years

It is 1937 and a few years before the reopening of the full Cathedral with the completed Nave. Other than the Majestas, none of the models have been carved. Cram and Ferguson write to the Cathedral that Mr. Lawrie is requesting some additional payment for his work. A portion of the June 24, 1937 letter from C.N. Godfrey of Cram and Ferguson to Dean Gates appears below.

Cram and Ferguson go on to advise the Cathedral that there appears to be no legal obligation but perhaps one of good will and a wish to do justice to everyone connected with the building. The Cathedral made the payment and obtained a complete release from Mr. Lawrie. Because of the slow and incomplete work of Lee Lawrie on his contract and the multiple changes in general contractors the central portal was never carved. Once the complete length of the Cathedral was opened and the decision to refrain from further building was made after WWII, it would be almost 50 years before Dean Morton would hire Simon Verity to complete work on the central portal, now known as the Portal of Paradise. Mr. Verity did not make models, he employed direct carving methods on all the statues.

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• Many thanks to Wayne Kempton the Diocesan Archivist for taking time to send us the correspondence and the images for this story.
• Thanks also to Tom Fedorek, Senior Guide, for his exquisite knowledge of liturgical symbolism.