Interest in the decorative works of Frank Lloyd Wright, the celebrated founder of Prairie School architecture, has caught fire internationally. Public reaction to exhibitions of home furnishings that he designed seems to indicate that the rest of the world has discovered something Midwesterners have known all along: There`s no stuff like the Wright stuff.
Wright championed the notion that furnishings should be integrated with the architecture of his houses, and on occasion took that philosophy almost to an extreme, in one instance even designing a dress to be worn by one of his clients while in the house.
Though he wasn`t the first architect to advocate such coordination of design, in his time he became celebrated for doing it in such a distinctive style.
Wright designed buildings throughout the country, but he is best known as a boy of the Midwest. He was born in southwestern Wisconsin, where he returned in his middle years to build Taliesin, a home-studio-school complex near Spring Green, after establishing his Prairie architecture in Chicago, and specifically, Oak Park. While in his 50s, Wright built a second home-studio-school complex in Scottsdale, Ariz., called Taliesin West.
For his homes, the prolific architect created solid, angular furniture;
geometrically patterned stained-glass windows; and clean-lined ornamentation and accessories. He died in 1959 at the age of 91.
Now Wright`s furnishings are making a comeback, of sorts, helped along by major exhibitions at New York`s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cooper-Hewitt Museum and Max Protech Gallery and the Renwick Gallery in Washington, all of which drew record crowds in recent years.
”Whenever an artist dies, there`s always eventually a reaction against his works,” says R. Craig Miller, associate curator at the Metropolitan. ”It takes rediscovery by a younger generation to revive interest in him.”
Scott Elliott, owner of the Kelmscott Gallery in Chicago and a lender of objects to the Cooper-Hewitt exhibition, says that the current Wrightomania may have generated from ”The Arts and Crafts Movement in America,” a landmark exhibition in 1973 by Princeton University and the Art Institute of Chicago.
In 1983, the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York exhibited photographs, drawings, decorative objects and furniture. Around that time, museums and galleries in Europe and Japan presented Wright exhibitions of his furniture and the Max Protech Gallery in New York displayed–for sale–original Wright drawings. It was the first time his drawings had been put on the market, a result of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation`s decision to sell some of his possessions to build an endowment to help preserve Taliesin, Wright`s house and studio in Spring Green.
Before the exhibitions began more than a decade ago, ”most people didn`t realize Wright even designed decorative objects and furniture,” Elliott says. ”This got people excited because they hadn`t seen it on the market before. Wright`s works clearly towered above the rest.”
Suddenly, auction houses such as Christie`s and Sotheby`s began pulling record prices for Wright items–$100,000 for a stained-glass window from the Martin House in Buffalo; $92,000 for a copper urn from the Waller House in River Forest and $77,000 for a desk and chair from the S.C. Johnson administration building in Racine, Wis.
Owners of some Wright houses, smelling a huge profit to be made, dismantled rooms to sell windows and other items, much to the horror of Wrightophiles.
All this attention in the last decade has boosted Wright to star–even cult–status, Miller says.
And with star status comes marketability, particularly in this age of the ”designer object.” And as Wright generated controversy throughout his lifetime, today the marketing of Wright reproductions is causing a stir: Two interests involved in selling reproductions of Wright`s decorative works are engaged in a lawsuit.
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, inheritor of Wright`s practice and conservator of his archives, is suing Oak Park architect Thomas A. Heinz, who has made and sold reproductions of Wright furnishings since 1976. The foundation claims that Heinz is misrepresenting the objects as being authorized by the foundation.
On the other side of the lawsuit, Heinz has asked the U.S. District Court in Wisconsin to declare him lawfully entitled to continue to reproduce Wright furnishings, dinnerware and flatware. Heinz`s firm now produces 28 designs, in prices ranging generally from $250 to $1,500; currently some of these are sold through a New York firm, Fifty-50.
Heinz, author of a book and various articles about Wright, established the firm, Heinz & Co. (P.O. Box 663, Oak Park, Ill. 60303), in 1976 to reproduce Wright`s furniture, lighting, dinnerware and holloware.
Heinz`s suit maintains that in 1977 he informed foundation administrators of his intent to continue reproducing Wright designs, but that the foundation didn`t respond until spring, 1984, when it informed him of its own plans to license manufacturers to reproduce Wright`s decorative objects.
The foundation alleges that Heinz has violated copyright and trademark laws regarding certain objects and the Wright logo. It also claims that Heinz`s reproductions, in view of the foundation`s own intent to mass-market Wright designs, will confuse the public as to the ”authenticity” of the designs.
Both suits aren`t expected to be settled until at least early 1986, foundation attorneys say. Heinz and his lawyer have refused to comment on the case.
Regardless of when the suits are settled, the foundation`s reproductions are expected to be available in mid-1986, a spokesman says. They fulfill the plan Wright put into production in the 1950s, when he designed a ”Taliesen” line of decorative fabrics and wallpapers for Schumacher, furniture for Heritage Henredon, paints for Martin-Senour and rugs for Karastan.
Schumacher will participate in the current round of Wright designs. Cassina S.p.A. of Milan (marketed through Atelier International in the United States) is reproducing some of Wright`s furniture as part of its ”Masters Collection,” which includes reproductions of designs by architects Le Corbusier and Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Tiffany & Co. is reproducing Wright`s china, crystal and silver; V`Soske will manufacture his rug designs.
The reproductions will be marketed by Steven Kroeter and Jennie Fields, owners of Steven Fields Design Associates, Chicago. Fields and Kroeter say they came up with the idea for licensed, high-quality reproductions in December, 1982, after viewing the installation of the Wright-designed living room of Mr. and Mrs. Francis W. Little of Wayzata, Minn., in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, director of archives at Taliesin West, says that the foundation repeatedly had turned down previous proposals to ”authorize” Wright reproductions until approached by Fields and Kroeter.
Kroeter says the reproductions can be at home alongside various other styles, despite Wright`s intention of ”organic architecture”–each object is designed to work specifically within individual houses.
”His works are classics. They`re art to live with so they fit into any setting,” he says. ”And with the eclectic approach to decorating, each piece is simply wonderful in itself.”
Every attempt will be made to use the same materials as in the originals, Kroeter says. Reproductions of the early works will be in ”colors of the earth,” as Wright termed muted shades. His later works, done in lighter
”colors of the sun,” reflect the influence of his third wife, Olgivanna.
Kroeter says that eventually he hopes to market reproductions of the artist`s lamps and stained-glass windows.
Only a few designs in each medium will be produced at first, Kroeter says. ”But this will be a long-term project. There`s about 80 years of his work, so there`s a lot to choose from. We anticipate world interest in these high-quality reproductions.”
