TLS, signed “F. LL. W.,” two pages, one 8.25 x 19 and one 8.25 x 9.5, Taliesin letterhead, January 19, 1932. Wright writes to Lewis Mumford, with many handwritten corrections and notations by Wright throughout, with Wright’s comments in brackets. In part: “I consented to join the affair thinking I would be among my peers: I heard only of Corbusier, Mies et al. I found a handpicked select group including Hood and Neutra….As for the exception of Neutra. It applies to a type I have learned to dislike, by cumulative experience, and to suffer from. He came here to work, 1924 I think, after a sojourn with Holabird and Root, marking-in plumbing on plans. He was worthless…and left after nine months. Previous to this he had been in the publicity department of the city of Vienna, had gone from there to Mendelsohn, and they built several cottages together since published by Neutra with Mendelsohn’s name deleted. Characteristic!
He went to Los Angeles to join Schindler. I think both are jews and were friends in Vienna. He wrote a book as one familiar with building methods in America [‘Wie Baut Amerika’]. Pretentious in the circumstances! There his publicity training began to work. He got a [half-baked] building he called the ‘health house’ built on Corbusier-lines absolutely, which I learned in an interesting manner….the mother brought a reprinted sheet of press notices about this marvelous house, ‘the details of which had been under consideration in the Neutra brain for four years.’…notices had been made up with a photo of Neutra in the middle, re-photographed and re-printed, propagandizing this ‘great’ European architect as the Messiah of a new system, hailing the order of a new day….This was bout three years after he had left Taliesin….
Then came the International architectural School in Los Angeles—Neutra and Schindler—with false pretenses in every line of the ballyhoo, Neutra taking the circuit…and lecturing as ‘great-architect-in-America’ when he went to Europe and ‘great-architect-in-Europe’ when in America, and ‘great-architect-in-both-countries’ when in Japan, where he went to follow up a friendship with a Japanese couple, who were here at the same time he was.
Well, out of the flimsiest qualifications imaginable, he seems to have ballyhooed himself to the point where I now find him. Hitchcock [& Johnson] supporting him because I imagine, he was the Internationalist—propaganda over here and a ‘ringer’ for the adored Corbusier? [Perhaps we should admire them–and] well, you will say, what of it? And I would say so, too, but for the fact that this imitation of our national high-power salesmanship is what is the matter with everything in our blessed, damned country.
And any modesty, or probity, or prowess any man might have or pursue is wasted, or rendered futile by the brazen pretense of any man with little or no talent so he [takes the proper attitudes and] can make the proper noises with his mouth. I am against making star architects by such methods [but I will be in the hopeless minority].
Neutra is the eclectic ‘up to date,’ copying the living. Hood was the eclectic copying the dead; is now the improved eclectic, copying the living. I do not propose to ‘take the road’ in fellowship with eclecticism in any form! [It is too late to compromise now.] I will stand aside, as I’ve said, and let the ballyhoo go by. I think, however, I should not meantime be silent or give in.”
Wright’s lengthy handwritten postscript, signed “FLW,” reads in part: “Enclosed with letter to PJ a short article to the Neuter inspired by a well written ‘writing off’ of Architecture…I want you to tell me directly, no matter how uncomplimentary, what you think of my action? Will you?” In fine condition, with a few small notations to top right corner of first page.
Accompanied by the aforementioned two-page article “To the Neuter,” rife with comments and corrections in Wright’s hand, and an unsigned, hand-corrected copy of Wright’s letter to Philip Johnson, dated January 19, 1932, in part: “I find myself rather a man without a country, architecturally speaking, at the present time. If I keep on working another five years, I shall be at home again, I feel sure. But meantime the scramble of the propagandist ‘international’ for the band-wagon must have taken place and the procession must be well on it’s way, without me. It seems to me, I see too much at stake for me to countenance a hand-picked group of men in various stages of eclecticism by riding around the country with them, as though I approved of them and their work as modern, when I distinctly do not only disapprove but positively condemn them.”
Also accompanied by a Western Union telegram from Wright to Mumford, dated January 21, in full: “All right Lewis your sincere friendship trusted I will stay in the New York show. The two exceptions I made were chiefly important because showing up the show as the usual politics and propaganda.”
In 1931, Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson began organizing what was arguably the most important architectural exhibition since the Chicago World’s Fair: the International Style show at MoMA. Inviting those now recognized as the most significant architects of the 20th century—Wright, Le Corbusier, Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Hood, and Neutra—they aimed to define a new ‘International Style’ that would encapsulate the modern architecture developing around the world.
Initially pleased to have his work presented alongside his peers—“I heard only of Corbusier, Mies et al.”—Wright was outraged upon hearing of the inclusion of Richard Neutra and grew anxious to distance himself from the show. In this extraordinary letter, capturing the fire and fury of the famously temperamental architect, Wright offers a lengthy account of Neutra’s career. Beginning with his brief employment at Taliesin, during which “he was worthless,” Wright moves on to explain how the “propagandist” architect’s experience in publicity was the cornerstone of his newfound celebrity. Telling of the cottages built in collaboration with Mendelsohn yet attributed wholly to himself, of his “pretentious” book written as an expert on American architecture, of widely circulated doctored photographs that presented him alongside his “half-baked building he called the ‘health house’ built on Corbusier-lines absolutely,” Wright relentlessly attacks Neutra’s credibility as an innovative architect.
When friend and up-and-coming architecture critic Lewis Mumford read this letter—one of many impassioned rants he would find himself the recipient of over their thirty-year correspondence—he seemingly replied encouraging Wright to remain in the exhibition. The accompanying telegram of Wright’s response confirms that he would in fact participate. Although his work was featured in the show, it was withheld from Hitchcock and Johnson’s book, released in conjunction with the exhibit. While the pair claimed that the omission was because his work had not kept up with the modern style, it is likely that Wright’s ill-tempered and insult-laden letter to Johnson (a copy of which is offered with this lot) had something to do with the decision. This is a truly remarkable letter with essential accompaniments, capturing the sharp tongue of America’s greatest architect, and containing excellent content regarding the famous International Style exhibit and the now-celebrated Richard Neutra. Pre-certified PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
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