The first history of Frank Lloyd Wright's exhibitions of his own
work--a practice central to his career
More than one hundred exhibitions of Frank Lloyd Wright's work were
mounted between 1894 and his death in 1959. Wright organized the
majority of these exhibitions himself and viewed them as crucial to his
self-presentation as his extensive writings. He used them to promote his
designs, appeal to new viewers, and persuade his detractors. Wright on
Exhibit presents the first history of this neglected aspect of the
architect's influential career.
Drawing extensively from Wright's unpublished correspondence, Kathryn
Smith challenges the preconceived notion of Wright as a self-promoter
who displayed his work in search of money, clients, and fame. She shows
how he was an artist-architect projecting an avant-garde program, an
innovator who expanded the palette of installation design as technology
evolved, and a social activist driven to revolutionize society through
design. While Wright's earliest exhibitions were largely for other
architects, by the 1930s he was creating public installations intended
to inspire debate and change public perceptions about architecture. The
nature of his exhibitions expanded with the times beyond models,
drawings, and photographs to include more immersive tools such as
slides, film, and even a full-scale structure built especially for his
1953 retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum. Placing Wright's
exhibitions side by side with his writings, Smith shows how integral
these exhibitions were to his vision and sheds light on the broader
discourse concerning architecture and modernism during the first half of
the twentieth century.
Wright on Exhibit features color renderings, photos, and plans, as
well as a checklist of exhibitions and an illustrated catalog of extant
and lost models made under Wright's supervision.
