Past Exhibitions
October 14, 2005 - January 15, 2006
Prairie Skyscraper: Frank Lloyd Wright's Price Tower
On the 50th anniversary of a singular masterpiece, Price Tower Arts Center
presents the exhibition Prairie Skyscraper: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Price Tower.
The exhibition opens October 14, 2005 and will tour throughout
2006.
Described by its creator as “The Tree that Escaped the Crowded
Forest,” the Price Tower was visionary in its time-and remains relevant today-as
Frank Lloyd Wright’s only skyscraper.
First imagined in the 1920s for a
New York site, St. Mark’s-in-the-Bouwerie, then redesigned and built on the
Oklahoma prairie for the H.C. Price Company, the Price Tower realized one of
Wright’s cherished ideals: integrating office, commercial and residential space
within a tall, richly decorative structure whose cantilevered floors “broke the
box” of conventional construction. Since completion in early 1956, the Price
Tower has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places, praised by
architect Tadao Ando as “one of the most important buildings of the 20th
century” and transformed into the home of Price Tower Arts Center as the
centerpiece of the museum’s permanent collection.
Now, to mark the
building’s 50th anniversary, the Arts Center will present a major exhibition,
Prairie Skyscraper: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Price Tower, on view from October 14,
2005 to January 15, 2006, with a subsequent two-city tour.
Organized by
Price Tower Arts Center, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, in cooperation with The Frank
Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona, Prairie Skyscraper presents for
the first time a comprehensive selection of the Arts Center’s collection of
historic artworks and objects relating to the Price Tower, including
never-before-exhibited Wright documents and drawings from its own holdings and
from those of the Wright Foundation’s archives. On view will be approximately
108 drawings, models, photographs, documents, building components (such as
exterior copper panels and louvers) and furnishings. The latter objects include
desks, chairs, tables and textiles designed for the Price Tower by Frank Lloyd
Wright, in keeping with his conception of the building as an integrated work of
art.
Visitors to Bartlesville will be able to tour both the exhibition
and the building’s historic Frank Lloyd Wright interiors, which have been
preserved by the Arts Center with support from the National Endowment for the
Arts. A highlight of these permanent installations is a new space on the fifth
floor of the Price Tower, in which museumgoers will see, for the first time in
decades, an example of the decor that Wright designed for the commercial offices
in the building.
After being shown at Price Tower Arts Center, Prairie
Skyscraper will travel to institutions in two cities-the School of Architecture
Gallery at Yale University in New Haven, CT (February 5 - May 5, 2006) and the
National Building Museum in Washington, DC (June 17 - September 17,
2006)-bringing its wealth of insights and materials to viewers throughout the
anniversary year.
As a further educational effort within Oklahoma, the Arts
Center is collaborating with the American Architectural Foundation, Washington,
D.C., in circulating a free traveling exhibition for younger audiences, Building
It Wright!, documenting the construction of the Price Tower through period
photographs and texts in English and Spanish.
“Prairie Skyscraper
documents how this singular building came into existence and demonstrates how it
epitomizes Frank Lloyd Wright’s lifelong passion for merging architecture,
design and art,” notes Richard P. Townsend, Executive Director and CEO of Price
Tower Arts Center. “At the Arts Center, we aspire to follow Wright’s example in
exploring the intersection of these disciplines-a mission we pursue through
collections, public programs and special exhibitions such as Prairie
Skyscraper.”
Accompanying the exhibition will be an illustrated
catalogue, published by Rizzoli International Publications and edited by
exhibition guest curator Anthony Alofsin, a noted scholar of Frank Lloyd Wright
and Professor of Architecture at the University of Texas. The large-format,
176-page book, with 150 color illustrations, features a chronology and catalogue
entries by Mónica Ramírez-Montagut, Curator of Exhibitions and Public Programs
at Price Tower Arts Center, and major essays by Alofsin; Hilary Ballon, Chair of
the Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University; Joseph M.
Siry, Professor of Art and Art History, Wesleyan University; and Pat Kirkham,
Professor at the Bard Center for the Decorative Arts, New York.
Among the
public programs associated with the exhibition are a day-long symposium on
October 15, 2005, featuring speakers including Anthony Alofsin, Joseph Siry,
Hilary Ballon, and Pat Kirkham and Scott Perkins. Other public programs include
a lecture on November 13 by Luis Carranza, speaking on “Uncontaminated Truth:
Frank Lloyd Wright, Mexico and the Primitive Modern,” and on December 4 by
Mónica Ramírez-Montagut, speaking on “The Tower Rises: Price Tower’s
History.”
The organization of Prairie Skyscraper: Frank Lloyd Wright’s
Price Tower has been overseen by Richard P. Townsend and Mónica
Ramírez-Montagut. The exhibition is made possible in part by the Henry Luce
Foundation, the Buell Family of Bartlesville, the Silas Foundation, the Oklahoma
Tourism and Recreation Department, Oklahoma Humanities Council, National
Endowment for the Humanities, ConocoPhillips, The American Architectural
Foundation, The Oklahoma Arts Council and The National Endowment for the Arts.
Assistance for historic preservation is provided by The National Endowment for
the Arts and The National Trust for Historic Preservation.
