TLS signed “F. LL. W.,” three pages on two adjoining sheets, 8.5 x 11, Frank Lloyd Wright Incorporated letterhead, April 7, 1931. Letter to Lewis Mumford. In full: “I know the little money-matter was foolish. But I’ve had so hard a time the past year getting pennies enough together to keep working—that I’ve begun to worry about my friends. It has come to me for the first time to wonder how it is all going with them and to view ‘with anxiety’. You would have hurt my feelings by not allowing my intention.
A copy of letter to Johnson. I haven’t told you about the European invitations.
Johnson is evidently a feature of the little group Hitchcock is pushing and hangs his hopes on—now emulating the Corbusier.
It is not a very talented group, I believe, as far as I know them,—but no doubt helpful if they don’t get things too far their way. They are seeking to start a narrow movement and inasmuch as they have no choice but to all work and think alike,— such is their thinking—,—they may succeed with other natural born emulators. This group within group with fixed ideas of the great Idea is always with us. I’ve seen it in several different forms already,—this is the latest, but by no means the last.
They are all hard-pushing propagandists. And I’ve observed there is no more conscienceless Propagandist on our Soil than the European-bred when once he grasps the idea that seems to work over here.
The Princeton Lectures are out and here is a first copy to you my friend—.
Some interesting battles are ahead of us.—I look forward with pleasure.
Concerning Sullivan’s Cedar Rapid’s Bank. To show you how difficult is the work of the historian. (and this for your ears alone) The only latter-day bank—really Louis Sullivan was the Owatona. The others were left more and more to George Elmshie— (my understudy while with Louis Sullivan—) and,—for reasons following,—that means more or less ‘arcing’ back to my own work. This is true particularly of the Cedar Rapids Bank, The Bradley House at Madison, the Babson House at Riverside, Ill- as you may readily see for yourself. George has frail, if any, creative ability,—knew only Sullivan and myself. And his work since leaving the Master was more characteristic of myself than Sullivan. He used to come out to the Oak Park Studio when I was pressed for help and take a hand with me—evenings.
Sullivan knew nothing about residences—as you know. and what George knew—he knew from early work with me—and overtime help.
The Charnley house in Chicago on Center Street I did at home for Adler and Sullivan to help pay my building bills. that house was the forerunner of the Winslow house as you may see if you glance at both together.
So there was, toward the last, this ‘backwash’ (as the lieber Meister grew more feeble and discouraged)—by way of George-. When George got out on his own after more than ten years with Sullivan he kept the Suillivanian ornament and added it to my sense of things and my technique in building—as you may see for yourself—by a little study.
I have never regarded the matter as important though at the time I felt it with some resentment. I remember that.
Nearly everything in Life is blended at the edges? No hard and fast lines in Nature you see. The Historian must make them, and lucky if he gets them in the middle of the ‘blend.’
Meiklejohn is out of the University I am sorry to say. And a prospect for such a School as I hoped to establish here at Hillside looms in Chicago as ‘the Allied Arts and Industries’. It is severing a hasty connection with the Art-Institute to go along with me—I have reason to believe. In which case you will have a hand in it.
Strange. I had to wait 27 years for some one in my own country to ask to publish my work-. And what better could I ask, finally, than to have Princeton make the offer?” Wright hand writes a few corrections throughout the text, as well as a brief postscript: “The cover is gay—reproducing one of the ‘abstractions for children’—from the exhibit? The ‘Sahuaro.’ In fine condition, with pencil notations to top.
Two weeks prior to writing this letter, Wright was introduced to Philip Johnson, co-curator of the upcoming Modern Architecture: International Style Exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, by friend and architectural critic Lewis Mumford. Though skeptical of their intent to define an emerging International Style—built around a group of ‘New Pioneers’ including Gropius, van der Rohe, and le Corbusier—Mumford saw merit in the overall project and hoped for Wright’s inclusion. When Johnson invited Wright to take part shortly after, the architect reluctantly and unenthusiastically accepted. Offering a characteristically dismissive opinion of his fellow architects, this letter gives voice to the reservations that would grow as the project developed, nearly leading to his withdrawal from the show. Beyond discussion of the now-famous MOMA exhibit, Wright continues with talk of his past work with his mentor Louis Sullivan and contemporary George Elmslie, making this letter a remarkable piece addressing two important periods of his career. Pre-certified PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
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