Radio City Music Hall opened in 1932..and is best known as the home of the Rockettes. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. Most of the buildings in Rockefeller Center, like this one, have art deco motifs.
The artist is Hildreth Meiere and the works are entitled "Spirits of Song, Drama and Dance".
The first piece depicts what would appear to be a Roman soldier holding the robe of an otherwise nude woman dancing in front of him and banging a pair of cymbols.
The second has a woman in a beautiful (majestic?) gown and headdress between two nude women...one holding the mask depicting comedy and the other holding the mask depicting tragedy.
The third work depicts a woman (nude but for a flowing scarf) dancing before a seated young man playing a wind instrument.
This website has the following quote from a 1932 New York Herald Tribune story about the pieces:
"A new mode in building decoration, using highly colored metal plaques, has been tried out at Rockefeller Center. On the façade of the International Music Hall fronting on Fiftieth Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, are three of these ornaments. The three are circular and eighteen feet in diameter. Each is placed sixty feet above the sidewalk forming a complete decorative scheme in harmony with the entire development.
Oscar Bach, metal craftsman, who personally undertook the execution of these plaques, following a design by Hildreth Meiers, said yesterday that they were the first and only building decorations of this type in the world. They required six months to build.
“These plaques are akin to gargantuan pieces of jewelry,” Mr. Bach said yesterday. “No machinery being available to cast these huge figures we were obliged to beat them into shape by hand in the manner of a silversmith. The riot of colors that are part of this scheme are due to a special enameling process we have used calling for a lavish display of genuine vitreous enamel. This process is almost imperishable. I believe these plaques will last as long as the universe. This is not hard to comprehend when I tell you that these plaques are chromium steel, duraluminum, bronze, brass and copper. And each has a specified purpose in the makeup of the pieces. Indeed, it is interesting to note that in recent Egyptian discoveries the enamels uncovered are in an almost perfect state of preservation, being as bright and shiny today as they were when they were made thousands of years ago.
“It was necessary to execute these three plaques and also the thirty-seven feet long rectangular one on the north façade of the RKO Photoplay theatre entirely by hand.”
A photo of the first piece can be seen at the bottom of this website- although no further information is provided: (
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The artist, Hildreth Meiere (1892-1961), was an American artist who trianed in Florence, Italy. She was also a mapmaker and served with the US Navy in World War I. Read more about her at (
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