Frank Lloyd Wright

Francis W. Little House, Wayzata, Minnesota, commissioned directly from the artist, 1912

Alexandre Guillemain Galerie, Paris

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Edgar Kaufman, Jr., Frank Lloyd Wright at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1982, p. 29 (for an archival photograph of the exterior light fixtures in-situ)

In Pursuit of Order: Frank Lloyd Wright from 1897-1915, exh. cat., Struve Gallery, Chicago, 1988, pp. 29-30

Commissioned between 1912 and 1914 from Frank Lloyd Wright by the lawyer and businessman Francis W. Little and his wife, Mary, the Wayzata residence was conceived as a summer retreat overlooking Lake Minnetonka. As with their earlier house by Wright in Peoria, Illinois, the Littles—cultivated and forward-looking patrons with a shared interest in progressive design and Japanese art—sought an architectural language that rejected the dense ornamentation of late Victorian taste in favor of a more modern, unified mode of living.

Set within the Midwestern landscape, the house embodied Wright’s emerging vision of a distinctly American architecture. Low-pitched roofs, projecting eaves, and walled terraces emphasized a strongly horizontal composition, while the interior spaces fostered a fluid dialogue between structure and environment. Developed in close collaboration with his clients, the commission reflects the Littles’ sophisticated sensibility and marks a critical moment in Wright’s articulation of a new architectural vocabulary.

Central to this achievement was Wright’s totalizing approach, in which architecture, furnishings, and lighting were conceived as an integrated whole. Every element of the Little House—from its furniture and windows to its light fixtures—was designed to reinforce the structure’s horizontal rhythms and unify interior and exterior experience. Even the lighting, both inside and beyond the house, was treated as an extension of the architectural program, articulating space while mediating the transition to the surrounding landscape.

The present outdoor light, a rare surviving element from this remarkably cohesive project, exemplifies Wright’s belief that design must operate at every scale, from the monumental to the most intimate. Original components from early Prairie-style commissions of this importance rarely appear on the market, making this work a compelling opportunity to engage directly with one of the defining achievements of early twentieth-century American design.