On June 2 The SC Johnson Gallery: At Home with Frank Lloyd Wright, an annually rotating exhibit at the SC Johnson Gallery in Racine, will open to the public and offer an intimate look at the legendary architect’s prairie-style homes and designs.
Co-curated by Milwaukee Art Museum’s Chief Curator Brady Roberts and Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, the director of the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives, the exhibit will rotate installations yearly to include the Wright’s various styles. Pfeiffer, who apprenticed with Wright in 1949, narrates part of the audio tour with the help of archival audio recordings of the architect himself.
The prairie-style homes were a good way to launch the exhibit at SC Johnson, says Roberts, because most are located in Wisconsin and Illinois. The gallery sits in heart of the SC Johnson campus, whose administration building was designed by Wright more than 75 years ago.
The exhibit explores the “organic design” concept Wright pioneered that emphasizes harmony between living quarters and nature and is evident in the abundant use of vertical lines and streamlined designs that also reflect the architect’s aversion to wasting materials. According to Roberts, Wright also focused on energy efficiency and was influenced by the concept of transcendentalism promoted by 19th-century American writers, like Hawthorne and Thoreau.
The gallery is housed in Fortaleza Hall on the SC Johnson campus, and will now share the building with the Frank Lloyd Wright Research Library. The exhibit is free of charge, and next year’s installation will feature the architect’s “Usonian” houses.
For more information about the exhibit and gallery visit scjohnson.com/visit.
