Frank Lloyd wright’s 65 years of museum exhibitions during his lifetime produced little surviving evidence in catalogue form—and the domineering manner he brought to the process of putting on a show does much to explain the dearth. Now Kathryn Smith takes us on a comprehensive tour through Wright’s exhibitions, from his first at the Chicago Architectural Club of 1894 to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1959. The details are fascinating, especially because of what they tell about the inclusions in those presentations and why they were chosen.
Wright was not content to let curators select or arrange his own work, and he erupted with scabrous objections at their mild efforts to do so. He often provided his own drawings, models, photographs, and text, and at times had a hand in the layout of shows. Accordingly, the impression has emerged of Wright as a cantankerous traveling salesman, arranging his wares to maximize profit. This idea Smith categorically rejects. As she emphasizes, Wright’s museum displays resembled not the advertising pitch but the sermon. He reliably failed to take opportunities to meet museum trustees or other deep-pocketed grandees, and was given to omitting his most popular or venerable works in favor of projects he found more artistically important.
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