Frank Lloyd Wright

Grant Carpenter Manson, Frank Lloyd Wright to 1910: The First Golden Age, New York, 1958, p. 192
Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright: The Early Work, New York, 1968, p. 100 
Robert Judson Clark, ed., The Arts and Crafts Movement in America 1876-1916, Princeton, 1972, p. 69
Sharon S. Darling, Chicago Metalsmiths, Chicago, 1977, p. 71
William Allin Storrer, The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright: A Complete Catalog, Cambridge, 1978, p. 141
David A. Hanks, The Decorative Designs of Frank Lloyd Wright, New York, 1979, pp. 20, 35, 70-71
H. Allen Brooks, Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie School, New York, 1984, p. 46
Daniel Treiber, Frank Lloyd Wright, Paris, 1986, p. 24
Frank Lloyd Wright, Studies and Executed Buildings By Frank Lloyd Wright, New York, 1986, p. 56
Tod M. Volpe and Beth Cathers, Treasures of the American Arts and Crafts Movement: 1890-1920, New York, 1988, p. 134
David A. Hanks, Frank Lloyd Wright: Preserving an Architectural Heritage, Decorative Designs from The Domino’s Pizza Collection, New York, 1989, p. 42
Shawn Brennan et al., Reflections: Arts & Crafts Metalwork in England and the United States, New York, 1990, frontispiece
Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, Frank Lloyd Wright Drawings: Masterworks from the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives, New York, 1990, p. 286
Dorothy Spencer, Total Design: Objects by Architects, San Francisco, 1991, p. 51
Barbara Mayer, In the Arts & Crafts Style, San Francisco, 1992, p. 36
William Allin Storrer, Frank Lloyd Wright Companion, Chicago, 1993, p. 141
Thomas A. Heinz, Frank Lloyd Wright: Glass Art, New York, 1994, pp. 35, 227
Thomas A. Heinz, Frank Lloyd Wright: Interiors and Furniture, New York, 1994, pp. 26, 114-115
Donald Hoffman, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Dana House, Mineola, NY, 1996, pp. 74-75
Carla Lind, Lost Wright: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Vanished Masterpieces, New York, 1996, pp. 48, 140
Alastair Duncan, Modernism: Modernist Design 1880-1940; The Norwest Collection, Norwest Corporation, Minneapolis, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1998, p. 44
Diane Maddex, 50 Favorite furnishings by Frank Lloyd Wright, New York, 1999, p. 103
Jennifer Komar Olivarez, Progressive Design in the Midwest: The Purcell-Cutts House and the Prairie School Collection at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, 2000, p. 88
Julie L. Sloan, Light Screens: The Complete Leaded-Glass Windows of Frank Lloyd Wright, New York, 2001, pp. 23, 185
Julie L. Sloan, Light Screens: The Leaded Glass of Frank Lloyd Wright, New York, 2001, p. 43
Aaron Betsky, Three California Houses: The Homes of Max Palevsky, New York, 2002, pp. 134, 136

Wright’s Arts and Crafts Masterpiece in Metal

David A. Hanks

A group of Wright’s early designs for objects in copper and ceramic attest to the influence of the Arts & Crafts Movement on his work in the last years of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries.  In Wright’s own home and studio are many visual reminders of the progressive movement of his day, including an inglenook in the living room with a craftsman-inspired motto ''Truth is Life'' above the mantel.  Wright’s friendship with a key figure in the movement)--Charles Robert Ashbee, the founder of the Guild of Handicraft--began about 1900 when they met over the supper table at Hull House in Chicago.  Their correspondence shows a shared passion for improving the quality of design, but while Ashbee was concerned more for the individual craftsman and was less enthusiastic about the machine, Wright accepted both and championed the machine over handcraftsmanship.  Wright’s urn illustrates both traditional handcraftsmanship and machine techniques in its production, and demonstrates how the architect skillfully employed both.

The urn is among a group of objects--vases, a candlestick, pitcher, and wall sconce--Wright designed in the 1890s and which proclaim the architect’s lifelong concern for decorative objects and furnishings.  Objects available commercially at the time were not well designed and hence not suitable for Wright’s sense of an integrated interior.  As his son John remembered, Wright was ''not satisfied with the bric-a-brac of the day, so he designed his own…''  Wright wrote in his preface to Ausgeführte Bauten in 1910, ''In Organic Architecture then, it is quite impossible to consider the building as one thing, its furnishings another and its setting and environment still another.  The spirit in which these buildings are conceived sees all these together at work as one thing…''

The urn discussed here is but one of a number of projects which are recorded in drawings of the 1890s that are now preserved in the Archives of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.  Yet, at the same time, this urn is one of the few objects that are known to have been produced, as can be judged by surviving examples and period photographs of his interiors.

Much is known about Wright's urn.  A contemporary account described the use of the urns in Wright’s own home and studio: ‘’Among the decorative things in the Oak Park Studio are some very interesting vessels and flower holders of sheet copper of Mr. Wright’s designs, always filled with masses of summer blooms or trophies of autumn fields and woods according to season.’’  The autumnal color of the copper would have blended with the house’s prairie color scheme.  A 1902 exhibition of the Chicago Architectural Club at the Art Institute of Chicago featured a selection of Wright’s work.  This urn was included, listed in the catalogue as ‘’Repoussé copper bowl.’’  

The drawing for Wright’s urn shows it in elevation and plan, and probably dates to the late 1890s.  The back of this sheet is inscribed ''K.Schneider-/352 Southport Ave. Tel-…''  Kristian Schneider, an artist-craftsman who also made the models for much of the ornament for Louis Sullivan’s buildings, may have been responsible for the first urn or its model.  In the 1902 exhibition catalogue, James A. Miller, a sheet-metal worker, was credited as the manufacturer. 

Sullivan’s influence is apparent in the linear nature of the ornament of this urn, but Wright’s geometric sense of design is seen in the repeated circle and square on the urn’s four sides.  The cross-shaped base seen in the plan is square in shape and contrasts with the spherical form of the vessel.  Wright explored the juxtaposition of the circle and square in other commissions of the same period, as seen in a design of 1897 for the Luxfer Prism Company, the Francis Apartments' ornament in cast iron and terra cotta of 1895, and even his graphic design for his own logo signature.  Wright would explore these geometric shapes in his architecture throughout his career.    

The basic spherical form of the urn was raised by hand.  Repoussé copper was often seen in Arts & Crafts metalwork of the day and emphasized a handwrought effect.  An 1899 article in The House Beautiful was devoted to this ‘’pushing out’’ technique done with hammers and punches on metal against a supporting material: the first step was ‘’to draw or transfer the outlines of the design on the face of the metal…The next thing is to raise the ornament; so the metal must be placed downward on a [supporting bed] and the modeling done by hammering depressions…’’  The ornament on Wright’s urn, constructed from approximately eighteen individual sections, was cut from sheet metal and then soldered into place.  The urn was produced in two versions: one whose ornament is more polygonal and the second (the one offered here) with more circular emphasis.  The four circular medallions and the base of this urn were filled with plaster adding weight for stability.  Finally a patina was created by building up thin glazes of colored lacquer to give a sense of age.  Slight variations in size, detail, and patina occur in most of these handcrafted masterpieces.

In addition to employing the urns in his own Oak Park home and studio, Wright included them in the Edward C. Waller house in River Forest, Illinois, remodeled in 1899.  In the Waller entrance hall, a single urn on the newel post echoed the circular forms of the balustrade and served as a counterpart to the strong rectilinear accents throughout the space.  Another period photograph of the Waller dining room shows two other urns filled with ferns.  Urns used singly or in pairs were also in the homes of Avery Coonley and Susan Lawrence Dana, as well as in Browne’s Bookstore, all from the first decade of Wright’s work.  The urns complemented Wright’s geometric interiors and were always prominently positioned, placed usually at eye level or higher.  Although the exact number of urns commissioned by Wright is not known, extant examples are in the collections of Chicago Historical Society; The Dana-Thomas House Foundation, Springfield, IL; The Minneapolis Institute of Arts; and Victoria and Albert Museum, London.  No new examples have appeared in recent years. 

Since Wright’s death in 1959, there has been a growing appreciation of his incredible achievements as one of, if not the most innovative American architect of the 20^th century.  This urn is unprecedented in its strength and daring beauty and testifies to the enormity of Wright's vision.  As Vincent Scully wrote, ''from the very beginning Wright began to redesign every inch of the American environment, shaping a whole new world of form entirely by himself.''