Wright’s Birthday: Wright in the Abstract

Photos © Mark Hertzberg (2024)

SC Johnson Administration Building, Racine (1936)

It is June 8, Frank Lloyd Wright’s 157th birthday. Social media sites devoted to Wright are abuzz every year with birthday tributes. Sometimes I have something to post on “the day,” but not always. (June 8, 1968 or 6.8.68, my high school graduation day, is more significant to me personally, but that’s another story). I had nothing in mind to post this year until I took my customary morning bike ride and passed his Thomas P. Hardy House and the SC Johnson Administration Building and Research Tower which are on my bike route in Racine. I thought back to the fall of 2022 when my alma mater, Lake Forest (Illinois) College, honored me with a 50th anniversary Homecoming dual photo exhibit. One gallery was devoted to my career as a photojournalist, the other to my Wright-related photography. As I pedaled down Main Street this morning I decided to share the latter with you. The thesis of the exhibit was to present “Wright in the Abstract,” rather than only in record shots or head-on photos of his work. My challenge was to cull a few dozen photos of several thousand. The photos are in chronological order, based on the year of the commission, not the year of completion.

Romeo and Juliet Windmill, Spring Green (originally 1896, rebuilt 1938 and 1992):

Thomas P. Hardy House, Racine (1904-1905):

Meyer May House, Grand Rapids (1908):

Hollyhock House, Los Angeles (1917):

Taliesin III, Spring Green (1925):

Tour guests in Wright’s bedroom at Taliesin III:

Hillside Drafting Room, Spring Green (1932):

SC Johnson Administration Building (1936) and Research Tower (1943-1944):

Herbert F. Johnson Jr. Home (Wingspread), Wind Point (1937):

Florida Southern College, Lakeland (Beginning in 1938):

SC Johnson Research Tower, Racine (1943-44):

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1943):

Price Tower, Bartlesville (1952):

Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, Wauwatosa (1956):

Lindholm Service Station, Cloquet, Minnesota (1957):

Marin County, California, Civic Center (1957):

I will close with a photo I took just a few weeks ago when I was given the opportunity to preview the newly-restored Hillside Theater (1952), which is being inaugurated this evening, literally just as I am putting this piece together:

People have often asked me what attracts me to Wright’s work. As a photographer, I have a visual attraction to his work. That grew in part out of my newspaper photo assignments at the SC Johnson Administration Building. But beyond that, as I began to study his work, I was struck by the evolution of his designs from the 1890s until his death in 1959. Happy birthday, Frank Lloyd Wright, and thank you for your contributions to helping us reimagine the spaces in which we live, work, and worship.

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