ALS signed “Frank,” three pages on two adjoining sheets, 5 x 6.25, The Plaza, New York letterhead, no date, but November–December 1953. Letter to New Yorker architecture critic Lewis Mumford. In full: “Read your ‘appreciation’ in the plane coming in last night—both glad and furious—Read? Insults my clients and myself—I may be vain but I am not stupid—neither are my clients. He harks back to the view that an individual should go to ‘a style’ for his home, be the guest of a style rather than the guest of a great architect—? Yes? Good argument for the communist against democracy. He should talk to my clients. So you talked to one—one Paul Hanna. From him you got a false impression—at least so he says and so say I. Just one word slipped[;] the word ‘my’ was actually ‘your’ in reproving him for mixing his metaphors in living. As reprehensible as mixing them in writing. Your house said I—My house said you. Well, I see the misquotations in the New Yorker article—in effect—Now Lewis do you advocate that a man should shun the master and take the slave in order that his own individuality may not suffer eclipse. If so, viva ‘Le International’—The communist wins over the Democrat? No, you don’t mean that—you mean that the master is so vain in the power of his works that he sacrifices his client on the altar of his virtuosity. The answer to that is from the clients themselves. They will be heard from because your imputation via Sir Herbert Read will make them all boiling mad. It is an unjust insult to their intelligence—(and mine). But love to you just the same. You will learn better now—.” In fine condition, with a couple small ink and pencil notations to top right corner of first page.
More than 25 years into their famous correspondence, Wright penned this typically condescending critique of Mumford’s recent New Yorker piece, entitled ‘The Sky Line: A Phoenix Too Infrequent,’ a review of the exhibition Sixty Years of Living Architecture. In the lengthy two-part review, Mumford offered a balanced assessment, beginning with the claim that Wright was ‘the most original architect the United States had produced’ and ‘one of the most creative architectural geniuses of all time’—glowing praise, which Wright quickly overlooked. Mumford was particularly critical of Wright's inflexibility in incorporating his clients' requests into the design process—a critique of his personality as much as his work—and Wright responds as if it were indeed a personal attack. Just as the exhibition at the Guggenheim encapsulated Wright's entire body of work, this is an ideal letter in that it serves as a synopsis of the famous embattled relationship between Wright and Mumford, artist and critic, and reveals Wright's ego and inner thoughts as he defends both his architectural work and his own personality. Pre-certified John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
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