Created and Sold by Lee Lawrie

Sculptures by Lee Lawrie seen at The National Cathedral, Washington, D.C., Washington - Statue of George Washington

Statue of George Washington

Item details

The best description of this work comes from the National Cathedral’s Website, https://cathedral.org/what-to-see/interior/george-washington-bay/
"The seven-foot statue of President George Washington is one of the few free-standing statues in the Cathedral and one of several memorials to the nation’s first President.

Sculpted of white Vermont marble in 1947, the statue reflects various aspects of Washington’s life, which are inscribed into the based below: First Citizen, Churchman, President, Statesman, Farmer, Soldier, Patriot and Freemason.

‘I have tried to show not the soldier, not the President, but the man Washington, coming into Christ Church, Alexandria, pausing a moment before going down the aisle to his pew,’ said sculptor Lee Lawrie (1877-1963)."

It is located in the lower level of the Cathedral and is inscribed with various traits and occupations that best characterized our first president

Context & Credits

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Meet the Creator

Lee Lawrie

Austin, TX

Gregory Paul Harm, M.A. Independent Researcher, Photographer, Writer Biographer of the life and works of Lee Lawrie.

"Lee Oscar Lawrie was one of the United States' foremost architectural sculptors and a key figure in the American art scene preceding World War II. Over his long career of more than 300 commissions, Lawrie's style evolved through Modern Gothic, to Beaux-Arts, Classicism, and, finally, into Moderne or Art Deco.

He created a frieze on the Nebraska State Capitol building in Lincoln, Nebraska, including a portrayal of the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation. He also created some of the architectural sculpture and his most prominent work, the free-standing bronze Atlas (installed 1937) at New York City's Rockefeller Center.

Lawrie's work is associated with some of the United States' most noted buildings of the first half of the twentieth century. His stylistic approach evolved with building styles that ranged from Beaux-Arts to neo-Gothic to Art Deco. Many of his architectural sculptures were completed for buildings by Bertram Goodhue of Cram & Goodhue, including the chapel at West Point; the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.; the Nebraska State Capitol; the Los Angeles Public Library; St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in New York; and Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago."

Available for commission/custom work