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Lot Essay
Radical Innovation: Important Art Glass Designed for the Susan Lawrence Dana House, Springfield, Illinois
“…to make of a building, together with its equipment, appurtenances and environment, an entity which shall constitute a complete work of art…to be uplifting and helpful in the same sense that pure air to breathe is better than air poisoned with noxious gases.” F. L. Wright In the Cause of Architecture
“We have no longer an outside and an inside as two separate things…form and function thus become one in design and execution if the nature of materials and method and purpose are all in unison.” F. L. Wright
Can a single element of a total work of art also be a complete work of art in and of itself? In the case of Frank Lloyd Wright’s important glass windows designed for the Susan Lawrence Dana House in Springfield, Illinois, the answer is yes. Glass was not simply a material for the regulation and integration of light and air, but a plastic, multi-sensory medium for the creation of the most important and visually innovative art of the 20th century. Within Wright’s visionary architecture there is little space to accommodate the art of other artists; however, Wright supplied the owners of his most important (and well-financed) houses with a visual display in glass that pushed the boundaries of art at the beginning of the 20th century. Wright’s enveloping and inventive designs are well known as an influence in the arts and crafts movement in the United States, but he also had an outsized influence on nearly all global art movements that followed—from the pure geometry of DeStijl and the Bauhaus or as a predecessor to the kinetic visual effects of Cubism and Futurism.
The glass designs presented here are one of the four window patterns originally drawn by Wright to surround the Moon Children fountain adjacent to the living hall in the Dana House. Ultimately, two patterns were selected by Wright and installed as pairs of interior doors, which lead to a garden passage and to a conservatory corridor. As an urban residence, the Dana House was not set on an open prairie, nor was it nestled into a hillside with a view, as Wright ideally conceived as a setting for his architecture. Instead, this was an urban domain, and nature was integrated into the house though the most elaborate and elegantly abstract windows of Frank Lloyd Wright’s career. Unlike many of the most important homes of the Prairie period from 1900 until 1914, the Dana House retains nearly all of the original interior fittings. While the home and its original interior décor represent the most elaborate of all Wright’s residential projects, its individual elements are less well known to the general public. This stands in contrast to the Darwin Martin House in Buffalo, New York (1903) whose windows and interiors were stripped in the 1930s allowing individual works to enter museums and the public consciousness in ways that were not possible with the Dana House, whose interior and windows are preserved in its original state for posterity. This fact further emphasizes the rarity of the present lot in the marketplace and will surely contribute to the broadening of awareness of this apex moment in Wright’s artistic output.
Frank Lloyd Wright knew he had made a masterpiece in his creative practice with the windows executed for Susan Lawrence Dana and he had two extra windows made for his own purposes. In 1907, Wright utilized the present pair of windows in his most important and comprehensive exhibition to date: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Work held at the Chicago Architecture Club, Art Institute of Chicago. In the curatorial display of the exhibition, as in the house, the viewer confronts the glass composition from both sides. This allows one to experience the reflection of light from the jewel-like facets of iridized glass with a simultaneous view of the surrounding space through the glass. The perceived reflection of the viewer in the window is nearly cubist in its faceted geometry, matching the graphic simplification of the plants in the composition. The view through the glass then superimposes Wright’s stylized flora onto what is perceived beyond, like visual layers in stage design. This effect draws you further into the world of Wright and his completely radical artistic vision. Furthermore, the element of time is also present in the otherwise static image where the changing light of day or the gradual passing of the seasons can be interpreted in the play of reflected and translucent light on the windows. Different lighting conditions produce hues that vary from a full spectrum of vibrant summer colors projected from the iridized surfaces to a subtle autumnal palette that appears when light is refracted through the glass. There is no other artistic medium that can have this range of physical or visual characteristics other than glass, and in this pair of important light screens, there is no greater expression of Wright’s unified artistic genius.
In 1900, much of the prevailing art in America representing nature was one of heroic majesty with distant vistas depicting a kind of untouchable Eden. At 33 years of age, Wright took a new path, demonstrating his complete reverence for nature in anticipation of the new century that lay ahead—a world of the machine tempered as geometric order within an organically cohesive whole. The window designs for the Susan Lawrence Dana House display a cascade of vibrant chevrons from the upper register of the composition which flow over stacked rectangular glass panes terminating in tendrils of gridded squares. With the presence of a slightly opaque white glass band along the top of the composition, Wright directly references the finely cast concrete caps on the garden walls visible in the distance, bringing the exterior garden and wall into the living space. Upon it, the distilled form of leaves and flowers—likely representing the delicate wisteria—form a soft complement to the overarching theme of the sumac throughout the house. In these masterpieces of glass art, Wright is allowing the viewer a stimulating contrast of visceral sensibilities: inside and outside, reflection and refraction, warm and cool.
The geometric pattern utilized throughout the Susan Lawrence Dana House is the chevron, which translates to rafter in French. In this way, the window design can be seen as foliage as well as structural elements or eaves, echoing the nature-based principles of Wright’s architecture. This concept is further evidenced in the monumental dawn window of the primary bedroom as the vaulted ribs of the ceiling are echoed in the linear pattern of the leaded glass, visually extending the room beyond the glass curtain wall. The effect is one of constant questioning of assumptions. Ultimately, the windows of the Dana House are not simply stylized patterns or static aesthetic embellishments, but rather a metaphysical expression encapsulating much of Wright’s complex design philosophy at this seminal moment at the outset of the 20th century, altering the course of art history.
“…to make of a building, together with its equipment, appurtenances and environment, an entity which shall constitute a complete work of art…to be uplifting and helpful in the same sense that pure air to breathe is better than air poisoned with noxious gases.” F. L. Wright In the Cause of Architecture
“We have no longer an outside and an inside as two separate things…form and function thus become one in design and execution if the nature of materials and method and purpose are all in unison.” F. L. Wright
Can a single element of a total work of art also be a complete work of art in and of itself? In the case of Frank Lloyd Wright’s important glass windows designed for the Susan Lawrence Dana House in Springfield, Illinois, the answer is yes. Glass was not simply a material for the regulation and integration of light and air, but a plastic, multi-sensory medium for the creation of the most important and visually innovative art of the 20th century. Within Wright’s visionary architecture there is little space to accommodate the art of other artists; however, Wright supplied the owners of his most important (and well-financed) houses with a visual display in glass that pushed the boundaries of art at the beginning of the 20th century. Wright’s enveloping and inventive designs are well known as an influence in the arts and crafts movement in the United States, but he also had an outsized influence on nearly all global art movements that followed—from the pure geometry of DeStijl and the Bauhaus or as a predecessor to the kinetic visual effects of Cubism and Futurism.
The glass designs presented here are one of the four window patterns originally drawn by Wright to surround the Moon Children fountain adjacent to the living hall in the Dana House. Ultimately, two patterns were selected by Wright and installed as pairs of interior doors, which lead to a garden passage and to a conservatory corridor. As an urban residence, the Dana House was not set on an open prairie, nor was it nestled into a hillside with a view, as Wright ideally conceived as a setting for his architecture. Instead, this was an urban domain, and nature was integrated into the house though the most elaborate and elegantly abstract windows of Frank Lloyd Wright’s career. Unlike many of the most important homes of the Prairie period from 1900 until 1914, the Dana House retains nearly all of the original interior fittings. While the home and its original interior décor represent the most elaborate of all Wright’s residential projects, its individual elements are less well known to the general public. This stands in contrast to the Darwin Martin House in Buffalo, New York (1903) whose windows and interiors were stripped in the 1930s allowing individual works to enter museums and the public consciousness in ways that were not possible with the Dana House, whose interior and windows are preserved in its original state for posterity. This fact further emphasizes the rarity of the present lot in the marketplace and will surely contribute to the broadening of awareness of this apex moment in Wright’s artistic output.
Frank Lloyd Wright knew he had made a masterpiece in his creative practice with the windows executed for Susan Lawrence Dana and he had two extra windows made for his own purposes. In 1907, Wright utilized the present pair of windows in his most important and comprehensive exhibition to date: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Work held at the Chicago Architecture Club, Art Institute of Chicago. In the curatorial display of the exhibition, as in the house, the viewer confronts the glass composition from both sides. This allows one to experience the reflection of light from the jewel-like facets of iridized glass with a simultaneous view of the surrounding space through the glass. The perceived reflection of the viewer in the window is nearly cubist in its faceted geometry, matching the graphic simplification of the plants in the composition. The view through the glass then superimposes Wright’s stylized flora onto what is perceived beyond, like visual layers in stage design. This effect draws you further into the world of Wright and his completely radical artistic vision. Furthermore, the element of time is also present in the otherwise static image where the changing light of day or the gradual passing of the seasons can be interpreted in the play of reflected and translucent light on the windows. Different lighting conditions produce hues that vary from a full spectrum of vibrant summer colors projected from the iridized surfaces to a subtle autumnal palette that appears when light is refracted through the glass. There is no other artistic medium that can have this range of physical or visual characteristics other than glass, and in this pair of important light screens, there is no greater expression of Wright’s unified artistic genius.
In 1900, much of the prevailing art in America representing nature was one of heroic majesty with distant vistas depicting a kind of untouchable Eden. At 33 years of age, Wright took a new path, demonstrating his complete reverence for nature in anticipation of the new century that lay ahead—a world of the machine tempered as geometric order within an organically cohesive whole. The window designs for the Susan Lawrence Dana House display a cascade of vibrant chevrons from the upper register of the composition which flow over stacked rectangular glass panes terminating in tendrils of gridded squares. With the presence of a slightly opaque white glass band along the top of the composition, Wright directly references the finely cast concrete caps on the garden walls visible in the distance, bringing the exterior garden and wall into the living space. Upon it, the distilled form of leaves and flowers—likely representing the delicate wisteria—form a soft complement to the overarching theme of the sumac throughout the house. In these masterpieces of glass art, Wright is allowing the viewer a stimulating contrast of visceral sensibilities: inside and outside, reflection and refraction, warm and cool.
The geometric pattern utilized throughout the Susan Lawrence Dana House is the chevron, which translates to rafter in French. In this way, the window design can be seen as foliage as well as structural elements or eaves, echoing the nature-based principles of Wright’s architecture. This concept is further evidenced in the monumental dawn window of the primary bedroom as the vaulted ribs of the ceiling are echoed in the linear pattern of the leaded glass, visually extending the room beyond the glass curtain wall. The effect is one of constant questioning of assumptions. Ultimately, the windows of the Dana House are not simply stylized patterns or static aesthetic embellishments, but rather a metaphysical expression encapsulating much of Wright’s complex design philosophy at this seminal moment at the outset of the 20th century, altering the course of art history.