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787 Seventh Ave
AXA Equitable Building
1290 Avenue
of the Americas
1290 Avenue of the Americas
Public Art & The Collection

AXA Equitable offices are located across the street at 1290 Sixth Avenue, between 51 st and 52 nd Streets. The public spaces of 1290 Sixth Avenue are devoted to exhibition galleries and public art, as well as other amenities. I think you may want to revise this text.

Permanant Collections

Some description of the permanant collections, where they are housed and names??? At vero eos et accusamus et iusto odio dignissimos ducimus qui blanditiis praesentium voluptatum deleniti atque corrupti

Alex - I need more information on this section. Also, the map on this page is a placeholder. Give me a call 212-314-3154

Public Art

Thomas Hart Benton
“City Building” from
America Today 1930. Distemper and egg tempera
with oil glaze on gessoed linen

Benton CollageThomas Hart Benton's epic mural America Today was originally executed for New York's New School for Social Research in 1930. The project's success sparked renewed interest in mural painting which helped to precipitate the well-known mural program of the federal government's Works Project Administration (WPA) in the mid-1930s. In 1984, America Today was purchased by AXA Equitable and was completely restored – along with its original Art Deco-style moldings – before its installation at AXA Equitable Tower in 1985. The murals can now be viewed in the lobby of 1290 Avenue of the Americas.

Based largely on the artist's sketches made on trips taken throughout the country in the 1920s, America Today is a panoramic interpretation of the nation during the Jazz Age, a period noted for its dramatic economic and industrial growth. The two end panels, entitled, respectively, “City Activities with Dance Hall” and “City Activities with Subway” illustrate the raucous and licentious aspects of urban pastimes of the period. The second, third and fourth panels from the left, “City Building,” “Coal,” and “Steel,” commemorate big industry and the American worker. The center panel, “Instruments of Power,” is an optimistic vision of technological progress in transportation and energy production. “Changing West,” Midwest,” and “Deep South,” the sixth, seventh and eighth panels, portray three of the country's geographical regions and the industries for which they were known.

The smallest panel from the cycle, “Outreaching Hands,” was originally located above the doorway of the room in which the mural was installed at the New School. This is the only panel that, in its portrayal of a poor-house and breadline, suggests the effects of the Depression. It was the final panel to be painted, probably in 1931 or 1932, by which time the effects of the Depression were fully felt.



 
 
 
787 Seventh Avenue
at 51st Street
New York NY 10019
212-554-4818
 
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