Wright Chat

A few days ago I became interested in seeing if I could find out where
the Ward Willitts house dining room table is now by searching Google.
I acquired it and several high back Willitts chairs in 1961 when I was
selling pottery at a Highland Park, Illinois art fair. I found only
what I already knew in a vague way, that Homer Fieldhouse of Madison, Wisconsin traded or gave it to Robert Graves, a son of
Wright's caretakers of Taliesin. Robert Graves sold the table in the eighties to
Scott Eliott of Chicago who soon sold it to Daniel Wolf of NY. There
the trail of the table grows cold for me at least for now. I had thought Daniel Wolf was a NY art gallery but apparently the gallery sold only photos.

My former wife gave the table to landscape architect Homer Fieldhouse of Madison, Wisconsin in the eighties.

Does anyone know what Daniel Wolf did with the Ward Willitts dining rom table? Also there were other Ward Willitts high back dining room chairs
in addition to the four I had, one of which has arm rests and is wider. Apparently, Thomas Monaghan bought one of these at Christie's for $198,00 in 1986, and he sold it to the Victoria and Albert Museum, according to information I found. There were six or eight of those Willitts high back dining room chairs without the arm rests. Does anyone know the story of these other Willitts high back chairs?

You owned 4 original Willitts dining chairs?

Excuse my ignorance but why did you sell them?

And your former wife gave the table to a landscape architect?

What the...

In 1961 when I got the Ward Willitts house furniture this stuff was not valued by the art museums or the collectors. Only a few people were seriously interested in Wright and in his work then.

I sold the first high back dining room chair in 1978 to the St Louis Art Museum because I needed the money. I got $4,500 for it.

In 1979 and 1980 I sold two more high back chairs and the high back that is wider and with arm rests - to the Met in NY, the Atlanta Art Museum and one
went to an unidentified art collector, through David Allen Hanks. The problem was that the price I got stayed the same - $4,500 each and the
one that went to a private collector for I believe $4,000 because one of the vertical slats was a little warped. The dealer - Hanks - may have made money on the transactions. Then, in 1985 I sold the low back chair to Beth Cathers of NY for $22,000 - but by then the demand for Wright furniture had risen and I should have received at least twice that amount. I heard it ended up in a Los Angeles area art museum. Again, I needed the money. I was an academic and did not make tenure.

I am glad most of them ended up in art museums.

In the eighties when my former wife wanted to dispose of the Ward Willitts dining room table, very few people knew there was even then a growing interest in Wright furniture by an elite. She did not know the table might then have brought $10,000 to $15,000.

That was her own fault. By the 80s, FLW was going for outrageous prices. Barbra Streisand paid a million for a Robie table lamp. There was no reason one could not have found out about the going rate.

Bernard Pyron--

Slightly off topic, but you have a wonderful photo of the old man, in silhouette, on your flickr site. Would you mind posting it here? Or mind if I post it here by linking to it?

Royalists -- or mere capitalists ? -- will always side with those seeking to maximize the monetary value of property. As someone with "nothing to lose," I will, I suppose, ever side with the public -- who, as I see it, stand to gain by the reining in of runaway prices, whether of real estate or of collectible furniture. Big numbers make news, but they can only mean restriction of access to sophisticates (and others) of modest means. Stratospheric prices can also mean that attempts at fraud and forgery are encouraged -- which can't be good for anyone but criminals ?

SDR

Wrighter in St Louis

I would post the photo of Wright I took in the summer of 1957 when he was giving a talk at the Spring Green High School. But I don't know how to post it. I see a button marked "Image." But there must be a way to load a photo before hitting "Image." But i don't see it.

[/img]

See this thread:

http://www.savewright.org/wright_chat/v ... php?t=4555

It is my cliff notes on how to post images. If I can do it, anybody can. (provided they have an image host that allows it)

Here is a link to the wonderful picture of Wright by Bernard Pyron, circa 1957

http://www.flickr.com/photos/halfback/1 ... otostream/

I love this because of the silhouette, with Wright seemingly alone and unobserved (cept for the camera), adjusting some small detail on a drawing.

Anyone recognize the project? Is it the fairgrounds, or one of the Pittsburgh bridge projects?

One of the dining chairs is currently on loan to the Cleveland Museum of Art from an unspecified donor.

Mention was made of the high back chairs. The description of the St Louis chair is 56" high. Were there other chairs for the dining room?

http://savewright.org/wright_chat/viewt ... c&start=15

See also previous page. I searched "Willits AND chairs" and got several threads . . .

SDR

So I go to share on that page, grab the HTML/BB code copy and paste it between the img symbols;


Old Man In Spring Green, Wis by bernard_pyron, on Flickr[/img]

and there is is. Of course I can only do this because the photo is public. if one has photos that are private, one does not have to make them public

Bernard Pyron -

Thanks for the post. It is great that you could be part of the FLW storyline (even in a small way).

Two weeks ago in FL, I met a man who was retired. He had worked his entire career at SC Johnson. He had plenty of second hand and some limited first hand knowledge of FLW. Good stuff... at least good enough for 2.5 Guinness beers and a good portion of a Hawks game.

He confirmed what we hear from others... FLW was a genius, likable, and a pain in the donkey.

Tim wrote:..... FLW was a genius, likable, and a pain in the donkey.

Well stated. As an Architect, it is mind boggling to me that he was able to convince so many clients over so many decades to depart from the ordinary and predictable and take a leap of faith on new and innovative architecture in the most personal buildings, their homes. At numerous times many considered him washed up and irrelevant. His response was to produce another brilliant building for the ages. What he achieved cannot be overstated.

I found this post from Feb 1, 2011 on the story of the Ward Willitts dining room table:

outside in

Joined: 29 Jul 2006
Posts: 501

"PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 7:33 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Roderick, I'm afraid that the owner was not offered a chance to buy the table for $15,000. Milt and I visited Graves at his home in Wisconsin where the table was being stored in a chicken coop. Graves DID NOT want cash, because of the tax implications, so he asked if he could trade something for the table, i.e., a car. Milt purchased an Audi for him, but Graves started getting nervous about the value of the table and contacted Scott Elliot, who traveled to Wisconsin to appraise the table with a suitcase full of cash. Elliot later sold the table to Daniel Wolf in NY for an undisclosed amount, but some say it was $35k. Milt kept the Audi and drove it for a few years. Luckily I snapped quite a few photos of the table during our visit, and, with the drawings on file at the Univ. of Michigan, was able to reproduce the original table quite accurately."

Who is "outside in?" Is it John A. Eifler, the Chicago architect who supervised the restoration of the Ward Willitts house?

And who is "Milt" mentioned here? I just dug out my correspondence on the Willits stuff and looked at the letters I have from John Eifler. In an October 24, 1984 letter John Eifler says "Wilbert Hasbrouck has appraised the value of the table at $35,000, much higher than any of us expected. Milt is not interested in paying anything near that - so we have not bought the table..."

So, apparently John Eifler and Milt, the new owner of the Willitts house in 1984, were at the home of Robert Graves and saw the Willitts table in the chicken coop of Graves. This is a part of the story I had not known then.

I am not sure that Homer Fieldhouse knew the table was from the Willitts house when it was given to him. Graves might not have known it either. I wonder how Eifler and Milt found the table?

I have an August 13, 1984 letter from David A. Hanks saying the Willitts dining room table would bring $15,000 to $20,000 in New York.

I found a "Spring, 1985" letter from John Eifler saying that "The table and chair were sold to Scott Eliott of Kelmscott Galleries in Chicago by Graves. He in turn sold it to Wolfe Galleries in NYC for $45,000. I don't know how he got the chair." Eifler must be referring to the "lost" Willitts low back chair of mine I was looking for in Wisconsin in 1984. I got it back in 1985, and getting it back after it was lost in 1971 is a story in itself, which I will go into sometime. So I don't know what chair Scott Elliott sold along with the table.

Here is another part of the story:

I found the letter of Wilbert R. Hasbrouck of Chicago sent along with his appraisal of the Ward Willitts chairs. The table was not included since, in 1977, when the appraisal was made, my former wife owned the table. In addition, the low back chair lost in 1971 was not included in the appraisal. He said each of four high back chairs were worth $4,500 in 1977. One of the high backs is wider and has arm rests. It was sold to the Atlanta Art Museum. Another high back was sold to the St Louis Art Museum, one to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the last high back without arm rests was sold to an unidentified collector.

I am sorry I allowed the chair to be sold to someone whose identity has been kept a secret. The Willitts lounge chair which Clayton Bailey acquired when he was with me in Highland Park, Illinois in the summer of 1961 at the art fair was sold by Christie's in late 2001 for $110,000 to a collector whose name was kept secret. On page 75 Thomas A. Heinz in his 1994 book Frank Lloyd Wright: Interiors and Furniture shows a color photo of a Ward Willitts house living room chair identical to the one that Clayton Bailey owned from 1961 until 2001.

And here is a note from Derry Graves, wife of Robert Graves, dated August 11, 1984, saying "We have made a decision on the Wright table and that is not to sell it."

I also have a letter which mentions the Ward Willitts dining room table in the possession of my former wife. Its dated January 17, 1982 and says the table was in the house at Cabot Lane when this writer bought the house. "I saw it when I toured the premises. It was dismantled and stacked in the shop. However, when I took possession of the house it was not there."
Cabot Lane is in Madison, Wisconsin.

It was sometime between early 1982 and the summer of 1984 that the table was given to Homer Fieldhouse of Madison, Wisconsin.

I have a kind of draft for a story of my Ward Willitts stuff on:

http://bernardpyron.ohlog.com/frank-llo ... 82883.html

The photos may not load on this site, but most of them are on flickr at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/halfback