The Drawings of Frank Lloyd Wright

"San Marcos-in-the-Desert," watercolor on art paper, 25 by 65 inches; 1927. Proposed for a site on Phoenix's South Mountain as successor to the San Marcos Hotel in Chandler, the resort was never constructed. Once Wright conceived his designs, he often left much of the delineation to associates. In this case the collaborator was his son Lloyd Wright.

"[Wright's drawings] do convey, in their own way, the essence of the buildings-more than photography ever could, really. Mr. Wright always insisted photography lacked the third dimension. Drawings are equally two-dimensional, but they somehow have the warmth and clarity of the vision and concept which a photograph can never have."

-Louis Wiehle, drafting assistant to Frank Lloyd Wright, 1950-1959.

For the first time in 27 years-and perhaps for the last time in this century-original drawings, sketches, and designs for some of the most important works of architect Frank Lloyd Wright are on public display at the Phoenix Art Museum. The exhibition, which opened January 13, continues through April 8, 1990.

"Frank Lloyd Wright Drawings: Masterworks from the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives" presents 302 of the architect's original drawings dating from 1887 (RIGHT) Two perspectives of a “peacock chair,” designed in 1915 for a dining room called the Peacock Room in the Tokyo Imperial Hotel, since demolished. Pencil and colored pencil on tracing paper, 17 by 20 inches. (BELOW) “Oasis,” an imaginative concept for an Arizona state capitol, proposed in 1957 for Papago Park but never built. Colored pencil on tracing paper, 36 by 46 inches.

through 1959. Organized in nine sections, the drawings illustrate the growth and maturity of Wright as architect and artist through his seven-decade career. Many of the drawings have never before been seen by the public in their original form. Taliesin West, in the desert foothills northeast of Phoenix, houses Wright's school of architecture and the Wright archives, repository for all of his drawings, correspondence, original manuscripts, photographs, books, and periodicals. During his life this was Wright's winter

headquarters, the seasonal alternate to Taliesin, his original home and office in Wisconsin. Deciding which of Wright's more than 21,000 drawings should appear in the exhibition proved a daunting challenge. The original goal, says Jim Ballinger, director of the Phoenix Art Museum, was to select 120 drawings. But it couldn't be done. “Because of the quality of the drawings and the extent of Wright's impact on architecture in the 20th century, it was literally impossible to choose only 120 drawings and feel that we were doing the job that we wanted.” Archivist Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer of Taliesin West agrees: “When Jim Ballinger and I began selecting the show, he was concerned that we were going to have too many drawings-with 120. He finally was able to edit it down to 302! “He was a little worried that it was going to be overkill-302 drawings in one big room.” But Ballinger solved the problem by dividing the exhibit into sections:

COMING YOUR WAY

Music and art: the singing of the Tucson Arizona Boys Chorus; the paintings of a 19th century Army medical officer. Folklore: Arizona's old cemeteries, where traces of the frontier can still be found. Nature: the marvelous world of the honey bee. Education: unique Prescott College, "for the liberal arts and the environment." In March.

With spring's arrival, Arizonans respond to the lure of open water in a wide variety of ways. We'll explore each of them, from canoeing in a wildlife refuge to houseboating on Lake Powell, from scuba diving in the Colorado River to sailing on Lake Pleasant. And we won't forget fishing! In April.

Meet the charros, heroes of a spectacular Mexican sport that demands amazing feats of horsemanship. Then join us for a steam-train excursion to the Grand Canyon; a visit to fish farms in the Hyder Valley; and a nostalgic return to Arizona ballparks of the 1930s, when Arizona-Texas League teams held forth. In May.

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residences, religious buildings, high rises, civic and cultural structures, commercial buildings, schools, and a miscellaneous section that includes factories and studios. "We also thought it would be interesting to focus on one building, such as the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo," adds Pfeiffer, "taking in facets from the architectural design, engineering, sculpture, window glass, carpets, interiors-everything. And then the last section-which we added quite toward the end because I thought it was too important to avoid-was Mr. Wright's graphic and decorative designs." For the drawings, however, the short trip of a few miles from Taliesin West to the Phoenix Art Museum was not as simple as it might seem. In 1976 archivists at Taliesin West began a long-range program to conserve 500 of the most damaged original drawings and sketches that had been mounted on wood-pulp boards.

Over time, the highly acidic boards had caused stains and burns on the drawings. Painstaking restoration has given new life and freshness to the works-some of which are more than half a century old. Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts provided key support for the conservation. Another 15,000 drawings have been sealed in acid-free Mylar, mostly donated by the Du Pont Corporation. It is because of the fragile nature Of these icons of American architecture that "Frank Lloyd Wright Drawings" will not tour. Its only public display will be at the Phoenix Art Museum. In the exhibition, drawings encased in Mylar sleeves are mounted on acid-free, 100 percent rag mat board covered with clear glass or Plexiglas. To protect the drawings from adverse effects of light, gallery illumination will be carefully controlled.

The exhibition itself provides a detailed look at the architect as artist, removing the drawings and sketches from their workplace environment, where they merely serve as tools, and raising them to the level of art. It is an eclectic collection reflecting some of Wright's most famous work: the graceful Johnson Wax administration building in Wisconsin with its lily pad columns and atrium work space; New York's futuristic Guggenheim Museum; the dramatic private residence called Fallingwater, which the American Institute of Architects Journal called "the best American building of the last 125 years"; and the striking Marin County Civic Center, a Romanesque structure of massive round arches rising out of the verdant hills north of San Francisco. Included with the familiar are many designs for structures that were never built:

The elegant San Marcos-in-the-Desert resort; the visionary concept of a mile-high skyscraper; and the exotic rendering of an Arizona state capitol in Papago Park. Patrons of the exhibition will see an aspect of architecture rarely highlighted. “The drawings themselves are absolutely outstanding,” says Taliesin Associates architect John Rattenbury, “even if you aren't an architect but just appreciate the ability of somebody to express himself in a very simple medium of lead pencils and colored pencils and sometimes a little ink.” “The dimensions in terms of the nummake it absolutely a major show,” adds Louis Wiehle. “Drawings convey the essence of a project in a way that really isn't available in any other way. If somehow the buildings themselves disappear, the drawings will still convey the beauty of those ideas.” As archivist Pfeiffer points out, “Mr.

Wright has been dead 30 years now. If you study the works of most men dead 30 years, you're going back into history. You study Wright's work as a living future because the principles upon which he built his buildings are so viable today and will still be viable a couple of centuries from now.

It is generally agreed a specialized exhibition of this size and scope conveys an important aspect of the art to be found in architectural drawings, an aspect rarely presented in a public forum. But there is another, more personal, side to the aesthetic lure of a drawing, best expressed perhaps in Wright's own words: “There's nothing more seductive than to sit before a blank sheet of paper with a handful of colored pencils.” Christopher Geoffrey McPherson writes a column for the Tucson weekly Observer newspaper and is a contributing producer for the Los Angeles radio program “This Way Out.”