Wright Chat

jon buschke · Joined: 01 Jan 2014 Posts: 2

Hello, I am looking for any information on two former apprentices from the late 1930. James (Jimmie) Thompson who provided a color film in 1939 for the London Wright lectures series given on 4-evenings and James Thomson friend of the Dombar brothers. Both were at Taliesin about the same time. Thomson worked on the Jacobs ll house with Dombar. Thompson was there for only one year. Wright mentions him several times in "An Organic Architecture" 1939. Both are about the same age born 1912-2914. I am trying to locate their dates and where they came from to complete a list of birth and death dates for each apprentice.

Roderick Grant · Joined: 29 Mar 2006 Posts: 9612

James Thomson was at Taliesin from 1934 to 1939. No other information is available in the Directory. There is no James Thompson in the Directory. It is not unusual for the name Thom(p)son to be spelled both ways; I suspect the two are one with variant spellings.

DavidC · Joined: 02 Sep 2006 Posts: 7187 Location: Oak Ridge, TN

John Geiger's apprentice list has:

- James Thompson arriving at Taliesin on October 1st, 1937

- James Thomson arriving at Taliesin on October 1st, 1937

David

DavidC · Joined: 02 Sep 2006 Posts: 7187 Location: Oak Ridge, TN

And, here's a picture from 1937 of Wright w/ various apprentices, including James Thomson.

He's also mentioned in the book "Building With Frank Lloyd Wright", by Herbert Jacobs.

David

Rood · Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2018 4:11 pm Post subject:

Though I never knew Thompson, personally, I projected one of his early colour films of Taliesin West many times.

John deKoven Hill told me that after leaving Taliesin, Thompson worked for a time as an importer ... Johnny later heard that one day Thompson went for a walk in the jungle (don't recall exactly, but it was in either Thailand or Malaya), and that he never returned.

SDR · Joined: 17 Jun 2006 Posts: 18293 Location: San Francisco

The only fault that I find with the Wright Library is that the size of images is limited: clicking on an image magically reduces it (by linking to a catalog page) rather than enlarging it ! The point of Steiner's pages seems to be "here's what's in my collection" -- and quite a collection it is . . .

SDR

Randolph C. Henning · Joined: 21 Aug 2005 Posts: 142 Location: North Carolina

There was a Donald Thompson and wife Mary (both from Cleveland) who were in the Fellowship from November 1934 until sometime in the summer of 1935. Donald wrote at least three known At Taliesin columns and Mary wrote one.