Wright and nature - Frank Lloyd Wright, Chicago Botanic Garden, Glencoe, Illinois

Magazine Antiques, Sept, 1997 by Allison Eckardt Ledes

Just when it seems that every sketch, drawing, and elevation made by Frank Lloyd Wright and every object he so assiduously collected has been exhibited or published, fresh material turns up. An exhibition that opens at the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, Illinois, is such an occasion. Entitled Frank Lloyd Wright: Drawing Inspiration from Nature, it comprises more than fifty objects, many never before displayed, including drawings, books, architectural fragments and designs, decorative arts objects, photographs, and Japanese objects. The show, which is on view from September 6 until November 9, is a collaborative effort with the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Foundation in Oak Park, Illinois.

Wright's fascination with nature has been well documented in his own writings, in his architecture and decorative arts designs, and in the many publications about him. Among the most important influences on his view of the natural world were his youthful years in the open farmlands of Wisconsin, the naturalist writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman, the theories of the architect Louis Henry Sullivan, the arts and crafts aesthetic, and Japanese art. His strong-willed and intelligent mother, Anna Lloyd-Jones, introduced him to Emerson's writings and the teachings of Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel (1782-1852), whose revolutionary ideas about education she had encountered when she visited the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. Froebel's work so impressed her that she enrolled in classes in Massachusetts (where the family was then living) to learn more about it. Froebel's "gifts," as he himself called them, were a set of educational tools that included maple blocks; soft, colored balls; beads and string; wooden sticks; and colored paper for folding. Wright felt that these devices, particularly the blocks, brought him closer to the geometries of the natural world.

Wrights pursuit of things Japanese was all-encompassing. His collection included prints, textile stencils, paper patterns, pattern books, costumes, books, and ceramics. His first visit to Japan in 1905 made an enduring impression. The spare and simple aesthetic present in Japanese fine and decorative arts inspired Wright to pare down to essentials both the forms and ornaments he designed The Japanese concept of a house as a total work of art was also not lost on Wright, who frequently designed not only the structure but also the furnishings for his domestic and commercial commissions.

Among the more personal objects in the exhibition are pencil sketches of plants by Wright and Catherine Tobin, his future wife, when they were courting in 1889. Wright was an enthusiastic amateur photographer and a few of his collotypes of plants are also on display.

The Chicago Botanic Garden provides a fascinating setting for this show because it has both a prairie garden and a Japanese garden that greatly enhance the objects in the exhibition and are organic examples of some of the influences that shaped Wrights career.

There is no catalogue for this exhibition.