- 128
Frank Lloyd Wright
Description
- Frank Lloyd Wright
- Pair of Doors from the Master Bedroom of the Arthur Heurtley House, Oak Park, Illinois
opalescent, gilded and clear glass in "colonial" zinc cames
Literature
Grant Carpenter Manson, Frank Lloyd Wright to 1910: The First Golden Age, New York, 1958, p. 128
Richard Guy Wilson and Sidney K. Robinson, eds., Modern Architecture in America: Visions and Revisions, Ames, IA, 1991, p. 119
Thomas A. Heinz, Frank Lloyd Wright: Glass Art, New York, 1994, p. 79
Julie L. Sloan, Light Screens: The Complete Leaded-Glass Windows of Frank Lloyd Wright, New York, 2001, p. 148
Marilyn Fish, "Prairie Restoration: Frank Lloyd Wright's Heurtley House," Style 1900, August 2002, pp. 28-35
James David Nathan, "The Pride of Oak Park," Chicago Times Magazine, February 8, 2004, pp. 23 and 25
Catalogue Note
The Heurtley House was constructed in 1902 for Chicago banker Arthur Heurtley on Forest Avenue in Oak Park, just down the street from Wright's own home and studio. The Heurtley commission is regarded as a defining moment in Wright's career, displaying for the first time the fundamental design principles of Wright's fully developed Prairie style. Wright's innovative use of mortared brick set in alternate bands of recessed and projecting lines, the dramatic low-pitched roof with its broad eaves, and the use of harmonious bands of leaded glass windows emphasized the strong horizontality and organic integration of the house and grounds.
The overall floor plan and elevation of the Heurtley House is a simple rectangle, which is echoed in the geometric frame-like compositions of Wright's leaded glass window and door designs. Wright effectively utilized the strong vertical compositions of these leaded glass designs to create tensions with the horizontality of the house. The subtle elegant palette of the Heurtley leaded glass, heightened in gold leaf, echoed the earth-toned color scheme of the interior and further reinforced the integration of the surrounding landscape. The doors presently offered, originally installed in the master bedroom leading to the second-floor porch, are one of only two pairs in the Heurtley House to incorporate this particular design. The other two doors were located in the second-floor living room, which opened to the same porch.