Man Controlling Trade (Model, Federal Trade Commission Building)

In 1938, Michael Lantz won the competition to design two sculptures for the Apex Building, home of the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C. The widely publicized “Apex Competition” was the largest American sculpture competition ever held, receiving almost five hundred models from more than two hundred artists. Lantz submitted small models of his designs, each showing a heroic figure straining to control a powerful horse. The final, seventeen-foot-long statues were completed in 1942 and installed outside the eastern entrance of the Federal Trade Commission building, where they can be seen today.