FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT (1867-1959)

AN UPHOLSTERED ALUMINUM ARMCHAIR FOR THE PRICE TOWER, BARTLESVILLE, OKLAHOMA, CIRCA 1953

Details

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT (1867-1959)
An Upholstered Aluminum Armchair for the Price Tower, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, circa 1953
33 in. (83.8 cm.) high

Provenance

Cecil Magana, Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
With Fifty/50, New York.
Sotheby's, New York, 10 June 1993, lot 283.

Further details

This stridently geometric armchair with its strong sloping arms was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for his Harold C. Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma (1952-56). For his pipeline company, Price requested Wright to design a three-story building. The resulting structure, however, was a nineteen story, strikingly angular tower which included offices as well as two-story apartments. The concept for this tower had been within Wright, latent, since he designed his unexecuted Saint-Mark's-in-the-Bouwerie in 1929.

All the Price Tower's furniture, for both the offices and the apartments, was custom designed and relied upon a modular system based on a diamond and a triangle. The chair offered here, which by modifying the design slightly was made in several variations, was used throughout the building, and the strong aluminum spine of the chair can be seen to echo the form of the tower itself. The hexagonal back and long spine also recall the upholstered wood chairs Wright designed for the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo (1916-22).

Lot Essay

cf. T. A. Eaton, ed. Frank Lloyd Wright, The Seat of Genius, Chairs: 1895-1955, West Palm Beach, FL, 1997, pp. 64-65 for an illustration of chairs of this model.

D. Hanks, Frank Lloyd Wright Preserving an Architectural Heritage Decorative Designs from The Domino's Pizza Collection, New York, 1989, p. 118 for an image of chairs of this model in an apartment at the Price Tower in 1956; p. 119 for an illustration of a side chair of this model.

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