Recently expanded with many new items!

Widely recognized as the leading figure in the history of American architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) forged a distinctly modern American style of building that was based on radical principles of organic design. Wright is most famous for his “Prairie Style” houses of the early 1900s, which are characterized by low horizontal lines that echo the broad flat plains of the Midwestern landscape. Inspired by Wright’s passion for Japanese architecture, his “Prairie Style” homes also typically feature open expansive plans around a central hearth, bands of sparkling leaded glass windows and low-pitched roofs with overhanging eaves. Although Wright is noted for his bold and experimental exterior designs, he was equally as progressive in his conception of interior space and decorative furnishings. Wright’s interiors are notable for his innovative efforts to harmonize the furniture and fixtures with the structural form of the building, creating a unified ensemble of expressive forms and materials. Influenced by the aesthetic theories of John Ruskin and the English Arts and Crafts movement, Wright believed the artistic integrity of the domestic environment could nurture the emotional and spiritual well-being of his clients. His reformist ideal of an integrated, organic simplicity to interior design became known as “The House Beautiful” movement and typified a new, American style of living that valued artistic refinement mixed with spacious comfort, functional ease and communal intimacy. Despite some of the progressive aesthetic and social tenets espoused by Wright, the ordered beauty of his house designs also embodied traditional values of agrarian purity and family unity and served as privileged retreats from the chaotic forces of modern cultural change. This gallery provides a selected overview of Wright’s career beginning with his earliest “Prairie Style” designs of the 1910s and continues through his modernist Usonian phase, which extended from the late 1930s through the 1950s. The pieces on display include significant examples of Wright’s leaded glass from the Little and Heurtley Houses, as well as furniture and decorative textiles from the Coonley House and Bogk House and a rare set of Usonian library furniture.  

 

Due to generous loans from Mark and Mary Ann Kaufman and an anonymous private collector, the Figge has expanded its important exhibit Frank Lloyd Wright: The Art of Living,which showcases Wright’s innovative career as an architectural designer of interior furnishings and art glass.

 

A notable addition to the display is a rare ensemble of decorative furniture from the Frances W. and Mary Little House I (1902), which includes a chair, table and woolen carpet designed in Wright’s "Prairie Style." To recreate the distinctive ambiance of Wright’s modern homes, the installation of these pieces has been paired with early 20th century American paintings from the Figge’s collection.

Wright's important early commission to design the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, Japan (1915-1922) is also represented by an elegant oak table with brass fixtures that was styled to harmonize with the luxurious ornamentation of the building, which was demolished in 1968. This expansion places Wright's decorative objects within the larger context of his early training with the architect Louis Sullivan. Examples by Sullivan include an ornamental plaster panel for the Schiller Theater in Chicago (1891-92) and a painted study for the decorative stencil patterns created to adorn the interior of the Chicago Stock Exchange (1893-94). While Sullivan is most famous as the originator of the modern skyscraper, his buildings were often decorated in intricate foliate designs that were an American variant of Art Nouveau. Frank Lloyd Wright was employed as the principle draughtsman in the firm of Adler & Sullivan from 1888 to 1893. During that time, he absorbed many of Sullivan's more influential architectural precepts, most notably his progressive theories concerning the functional, organic character of architectural design.

The expanded Wright exhibit also is complemented by an extensive display of Teco vases. Due to the increasing popularity of Arts and Crafts pottery in the 1890s, William Gates founded the Gates Pottery company in 1899, and in 1902 he began to produce a distinctive brand of art pottery named Teco ware. Teco pottery is favored by collectors for its unique range of vibrant glazes and novel architectonic modernist designs. In planning the interior decoration of his Prairie houses, Wright had a strong preference for Teco pottery and was commissioned by Gates Pottery to produce several original designs for the line.