Wright in the Abstract

Photos © Mark Hertzberg (2022)

I had to edit 34,575 Frank Lloyd Wright building images (or 185.62 GB) down to 30 photos for an exhibit.

Here’s the backstory: Lake Forest (Illinois) College, my alma mater, honored me with two concurrent exhibits this month for my 50th anniversary Homecoming. Rebecca Goldberg, Lecturer in Art and Director of the Gallery in the Romanesque Durand Art Institute building, initially asked me just to include a handful of my Frank Lloyd Wright work in an exhibit of my career in photojournalism. I found it hard to edit the Wright work down to just four or so photos. Fortunately there was enough space in two galleries to mount two separate exhibits, each with 30 prints. I decided to pick mostly abstract interpretations of Wright’s work than show perhaps predictable building photos. My selection is below, in alphabetical order of the commissions:

Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, 1956

Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida, 1938

Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida, 1938

Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida, 1938

Guggenheim Museum, New York City, 1943

Hillside Drafting Room, Taliesin, Spring Green, Wisconsin, 1933

Hollyhock House, Los Angeles, 1919

Imperial Hotel entry way, Tokyo, 1915, as rebuilt at Meiji Mura near Nagoya, Japan

Lindholm Service Station, Cloquet, Minnesota, 1956

Marin County Civic Center, San Rafael, California, 1957

Marin County Civic Center, San Rafael, California, 1957

Meyer May House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1908

Meyer May House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1908

Meyer May House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1908

Price Tower, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, 1952

Price Tower, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, 1952

Price Tower, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, 1952

Romeo and Juliet Windmill, Taliesin, Spring Green, Wisconsin, 1898

SC Johnson Administration Building, Racine, Wisconsin, 1936

SC Johnson Administration Building, Racine, Wisconsin, 1936

SC Johnson Administration Building, Racine, Wisconsin, 1936

SC Johnson Research Tower, Racine, Wisconsin, 1943/44

Taliesin, Spring Green, Wisconsin, 1911, 1925

Taliesin, Spring Green, Wisconsin, 1911, 1925

Taliesin, Spring Green, Wisconsin, 1911, 1925

Taliesin, Spring Green, Wisconsin, 1911, 1925

Thomas P. Hardy House, Racine, Wisconsin, 1904/05

Wingspread, Wind Point, Wisconsin, 1937

Wingspread, Wind Point, Wisconsin, 1937

Now, as for those 34,575 images…if I had time to go through them, a good chunk could be deleted. But who has time to do that?

Hours for the gallery…the show runs through October 30:

https://www.lakeforest.edu/academics/majors-and-minors/art-and-art-history/art-galleries

Keep scrolling down for previous posts on the website…

In and around San Francisco

(c) Mark Hertzberg 2016

Thousands of pictures were taken by participants in the San Francisco area during the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy’s annual conference in early November. While many people used sophisticated cameras, the democratization of photography through the smartphone enabled anyone to take high quality photos and post them to social media. While I take what I call “record shots” of the buildings we visit (literal views of the buildings for record purposes) I also look for different ways to interpret the architecture. Certainly mid-day is not the ideal time to shoot buildings, but one does what one can do while on tour!

Our first visit was to the Berger House in San Anselmo. I was struck by the juxtaposition of wood and stone…all put in place by the client over some 20 years as he built the house:

The Walker House in Carmel has a dramatic prow on the west side of its site on the Pacific Ocean. Undine, a two-ton sculpture of a mermaid by Robert Howard was placed on the prow in 1964:

Wright’s Marin County Civic Center and Hall of Justice in San Rafael (supervised by Aaron Green) is almost too easy to shoot in. Gold gates mark one of the entrances.

The stairwells are dramatic, too:

And then there is the gold tower:

Conferees were able to spend time in the VC Morris Gift Shop near Union Square in the city. The building is in transition between its recent iteration as an art gallery and its next life as a showplace for Italian suits. One can argue whether it is better to photograph the shop with merchandise, as it was designed to showcase, or empty so one can see the pure forms Wright designed. References were made to Wright’s concurrent design for the Guggenheim Museum with its spiral ramp. I also thought of his unrealized 1949/1950 design for Racine’s YWCA, which had a ramp from the lobby to the next level.

Sunday’s optional tour including a reception at the Fawcett House in Los Banos, certainly one of the more unusual sites for a Wright home…a dairy farm:

In response to an email I just got from John Clouse after posting this, I recognize the conflict between those of us who selfishly want photos with no people in them and conferees who have every right to inspect every nook and cranny of every building we visit! I sometimes wish we had a “photo bus” with those on board agreeing not to rush the building as soon as we arrive.

Next year’s conference is September 13 – 17 in New York City. I leave you with a photo I took closer to home, of the moon rising over the Home and Studio in Oak Park this past Saturday, the day before the “Super Moon.”