Brangwyn was best known during his lifetime for his mural painting, particularly those commissioned by John D Rockefeller Junior to decorate the entrance to the RCA Building, the centrepiece of the Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan. The skyscraper, named after the Radio Corporation of America, housed the famous NBC studios known as ‘Radio City’.
Rockefeller also commissioned Diego Riviera and Jose Maria Sert to contribute murals. Brangwyn contributed four murals on the theme of The Evolution of Man: Man Labouring; Man the Creator; Man the Master; Man’s Ultimate Destiny.
This is the ‘cartoon’, or design, for the first of Brangwyn’s murals. It is ‘squared-up’ to make it easier to enlarge to the size of the final work, which Brangwyn painted on a canvas measuring almost 5 x 7 metres before shipping it to New York. They were painted in monochrome to harmonise with the black marble walls and ivory-coloured ceiling.
