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Drawing extensively from Wrights unpublished correspondence, Kathryn Smith challenges the preconceived notion of Wright as a self-promoter who displayed his work in search of money, clients, and fame. She shows how he was an artist-architect projecting an avant-garde program, an innovator who expanded the palette of installation design as technology evolved, and a social activist driven to revolutionize society through design. While Wrights earliest exhibitions were largely for other architects, by the 1930s he was creating public installations intended to inspire debate and change public perceptions about architecture. The nature of his exhibitions expanded with the times beyond models, drawings, and photographs to include more immersive tools such as slides, film, and even a full-scale structure built especially for his 1953 retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum. Placing Wrights exhibitions side by side with his writings, Smith shows how integral these exhibitions were to his vision and sheds light on the broader discourse concerning architecture and modernism during the first half of the twentieth century.
About the author
Kathryn Smith studierte Literaturwissenschaft und begann nach einer kurzen Tätigkeit als Journalistin mit dem Schreiben von Liebesromanen. Mittlerweile hat sie zahlreiche Bestseller in Amerika veröffentlicht, die in viele andere Sprachen übersetzt wurden. Kathryn Smith lebt mit ihrem Ehemann in Connecticut.
Summary
The first history of Frank Lloyd Wright's exhibitions of his own work—a practice central to his career
More than one hundred exhibitions of Frank Lloyd Wright's work were mounted between 1894 and his death in 1959. Wright organized the majority of these exhibitions himself and viewed them as crucial to his self-presentation as his extensive writings. He used them to promote his designs, appeal to new viewers, and persuade his detractors. Wright on Exhibit presents the first history of this neglected aspect of the architect’s influential career.
Drawing extensively from Wright’s unpublished correspondence, Kathryn Smith challenges the preconceived notion of Wright as a self-promoter who displayed his work in search of money, clients, and fame. She shows how he was an artist-architect projecting an avant-garde program, an innovator who expanded the palette of installation design as technology evolved, and a social activist driven to revolutionize society through design. While Wright’s earliest exhibitions were largely for other architects, by the 1930s he was creating public installations intended to inspire debate and change public perceptions about architecture. The nature of his exhibitions expanded with the times beyond models, drawings, and photographs to include more immersive tools such as slides, film, and even a full-scale structure built especially for his 1953 retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum. Placing Wright’s exhibitions side by side with his writings, Smith shows how integral these exhibitions were to his vision and sheds light on the broader discourse concerning architecture and modernism during the first half of the twentieth century.
Wright on Exhibit features color renderings, photos, and plans, as well as a checklist of exhibitions and an illustrated catalog of extant and lost models made under Wright’s supervision.
Additional text
"Making expert use of the rich archival holdings of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and many other sources, Kathryn Smith has produced a compelling account of Wright’s negotiations and preparations for a career-long series of exhibitions of his work, mainly in the United States, but also in Europe. . . . Wright on Exhibit admirably fills a lacuna in Wright studies, and its chapters are fascinating in their accounts of the difficulties and successes surrounding the staging of these important events during his lifetime."---Joseph M. Siry, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians
Report
"This invaluable book fills a huge lacuna in our understanding of Wright and his work. In Smith's hands, each exhibition presented here becomes a self-contained story that contributes to the larger narrative of Wright's relentless determination to advance his ideas." - Jack Quinan, author of Frank Lloyd Wright's Martin House: Architecture as Portraiture
