Wright and New York
I have flipped through it, looks very useful, but saw in it that Alofsin was informed of Wright's emergency passport application in July 1910. I found that passport too last year. It was approved for "travel in Turkey" (obviously Constantinople) with his "wife" "Mamah Borthwick Wright" entered in his handwriting in green ink.
I am not as ready to dismiss it as irrelevant as Alofsin is in his new book. He says Wright didn't have the means to make the trip. If he didn't, how after getting that passport did they manage to travel to Bavaria, Vienna and Berlin from August until mid September? I have found two common "tourist" options used in 1910 to go to Constantinople from Italy where they were staying, then up to Vienna on the Orient Express.
Also, it fits with Wright's unusual use of the Islamic word "hegira" to explain his original reason for travel with Mamah. In the summer of 1910, the passport application would have been something they discussed and thought through. It's unlikely to have been just an impulse he gave up on.
I would attach an image of the passport but am not allowed as this is my first post on Wright Chat!
I am not as ready to dismiss it as irrelevant as Alofsin is in his new book. He says Wright didn't have the means to make the trip. If he didn't, how after getting that passport did they manage to travel to Bavaria, Vienna and Berlin from August until mid September? I have found two common "tourist" options used in 1910 to go to Constantinople from Italy where they were staying, then up to Vienna on the Orient Express.
Also, it fits with Wright's unusual use of the Islamic word "hegira" to explain his original reason for travel with Mamah. In the summer of 1910, the passport application would have been something they discussed and thought through. It's unlikely to have been just an impulse he gave up on.
I would attach an image of the passport but am not allowed as this is my first post on Wright Chat!
Thank you, Lukunor, and welcome to the boards.
Now that your "probation period" is successfully completed, you should be able to post at will. If you have further difficulty, I routinely web-host images
for Wright Chatters; don't hesitate to ask.
I've begun on my newly-acquired copy of "The Lost Years." (Don't ask why I've missed this book before now, as I have no answer. And, this makes
the umpteenth book on Wright published in 1993; I have previously commented on that oddity but can't at present locate my list of titles.)
In his introduction (see note 5) Alofsin promises the reader two additional offerings, to follow the present volume. "While aspects of the Wasmuth saga
and the narrative of Wright's work after 1910 will be covered in this study, they provide in this book the framework for an emphasis on the artistic and
social impact that the experience of Europe had on Wright from 1910 to the early 20s. This study will, in turn, act as an introduction and framework for
two studies to follow. The Wasmuth saga will be an investigation of the reception of ideas and include a history of the publications and their contents,
their dispersal and distribution, and a view of the pathways and critical response to Wright's work over the spectrum of his career...
"The final work in this trilogy will be a study of the period from 1910 to 1922. [Wait---isn't that what "The Lost Years" is supposed to be about ?] This
study will interweave biographical accounts of artistic transition and experiment that saw the design of major buildings of the period---the Midway
Gardens in Chicago, the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, and the Hollyhock House in Los Angeles."
Did Alofsin in fact complete this proposed trilogy, as described ?
S
Now that your "probation period" is successfully completed, you should be able to post at will. If you have further difficulty, I routinely web-host images
for Wright Chatters; don't hesitate to ask.
I've begun on my newly-acquired copy of "The Lost Years." (Don't ask why I've missed this book before now, as I have no answer. And, this makes
the umpteenth book on Wright published in 1993; I have previously commented on that oddity but can't at present locate my list of titles.)
In his introduction (see note 5) Alofsin promises the reader two additional offerings, to follow the present volume. "While aspects of the Wasmuth saga
and the narrative of Wright's work after 1910 will be covered in this study, they provide in this book the framework for an emphasis on the artistic and
social impact that the experience of Europe had on Wright from 1910 to the early 20s. This study will, in turn, act as an introduction and framework for
two studies to follow. The Wasmuth saga will be an investigation of the reception of ideas and include a history of the publications and their contents,
their dispersal and distribution, and a view of the pathways and critical response to Wright's work over the spectrum of his career...
"The final work in this trilogy will be a study of the period from 1910 to 1922. [Wait---isn't that what "The Lost Years" is supposed to be about ?] This
study will interweave biographical accounts of artistic transition and experiment that saw the design of major buildings of the period---the Midway
Gardens in Chicago, the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, and the Hollyhock House in Los Angeles."
Did Alofsin in fact complete this proposed trilogy, as described ?
S
I forgot to post (or try) the passport image.
https://photos.google.com/search/_tra_/ ... EEZevQvKsF
https://photos.google.com/search/_tra_/ ... EEZevQvKsF
So, for images to appear online, they have to be "hosted"---that is, they have to have a URL or Web address.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_hosting_service
I maintain a Web host for my own use. If you like, you can e-mail me images and I will post them here---or send you the image URL, so you can post as you like.
S
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_hosting_service
I maintain a Web host for my own use. If you like, you can e-mail me images and I will post them here---or send you the image URL, so you can post as you like.
S
The physical description of the petitioner is priceless...
The name Constantinople doesn't appear in the index of "The Lost Years"; the eastern excursions were not yet on the authors' horizon---or itinerary---I guess. On the other hand, he proudly introduces the reader to the St Louis
World's Fair of 1904, where Wright could have seen both Japanese and German architecture of the moment: though Peter Behrens, Josef Hoffmann, and H P Berlage all exhibited work, it was Joseph Maria Olbrich
who apparently took Wright's imagination, and the only one of the group that he later mentioned in writing. Alofsin's coup, here, is that it was almost certainly Bruno Möhring, architect, with an association with Ernst Wasmuth
Verlag and arranger and exhibitor to the St Louis Fair, who introduced Wright to Wasmuth or vice versa, rather than Kuno Francke---Harvard professor and naturalized American, remembered as a German seeker of
Wright---whom Wright and others believed made the connection.
Alofsin finds a letter by Charles E White which affirms that Möhring had earlier attempted to find Wright at the Oak Park studio, while Wright was travelling; the word apparently never got back to Wright on his return, and
so he may have been entirely unaware of the German's interest---and so believed it was Francke who made the Wasmuth introduction.
In any event, one looks with fresh eyes at Wright's post-1904 work...
S
The name Constantinople doesn't appear in the index of "The Lost Years"; the eastern excursions were not yet on the authors' horizon---or itinerary---I guess. On the other hand, he proudly introduces the reader to the St Louis
World's Fair of 1904, where Wright could have seen both Japanese and German architecture of the moment: though Peter Behrens, Josef Hoffmann, and H P Berlage all exhibited work, it was Joseph Maria Olbrich
who apparently took Wright's imagination, and the only one of the group that he later mentioned in writing. Alofsin's coup, here, is that it was almost certainly Bruno Möhring, architect, with an association with Ernst Wasmuth
Verlag and arranger and exhibitor to the St Louis Fair, who introduced Wright to Wasmuth or vice versa, rather than Kuno Francke---Harvard professor and naturalized American, remembered as a German seeker of
Wright---whom Wright and others believed made the connection.
Alofsin finds a letter by Charles E White which affirms that Möhring had earlier attempted to find Wright at the Oak Park studio, while Wright was travelling; the word apparently never got back to Wright on his return, and
so he may have been entirely unaware of the German's interest---and so believed it was Francke who made the Wasmuth introduction.
In any event, one looks with fresh eyes at Wright's post-1904 work...
S