FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S GRAND OLD FLAG
In a few weeks the Fourth of July will be here, and with it grand parades, booming fireworks, and — naturally — an abundance of American flags. The inspiring red, white, and blue design of our country’s flag has long been the subject of a countless number of songs, poems, drawings, paintings, books, and even fashion designs. So it stands to reason that the greatest symbol of American design also inspired our country’s greatest designer, Frank Lloyd Wright.
In 1927, Frank Lloyd Wright was down on his luck. What should have been a time of unprecedented prosperity for an American architect of his talent, was instead one of the worst dry-spells in his career. His architectural practice was producing little in the way of income, thanks in large part to the lingering effects of public scandals that haunted his personal life at the time.
During this downward turn he took up residence at Maginel Wright Barney’s (his sister) New York apartment. Desperate to make ends meet, he tried anything and everything to make money and keep himself creatively challenged. At one point, he tried selling over 300 of his Japanese prints at auction. Unfortunately, the auction results were dismally inadequate to pay debts, keep his practice afloat, and his often extravagant lifestyle solvent.
When the auctioning of his Japanese prints failed to make ends meet, Wright turned to his skills as a graphic designer in the hopes of changing his luck. It may have been his sister's influence that led him to try his hand at selling designs for magazine covers, as Maginel Wright Barney had been a prosperous illustrator for over 10 years in Manhattan. Her delightful paintings were regularly seen on the covers of such magazines as The Ladies’ Home Journal, Woman’s World, Woman’s Home Companion, and McClure’s. Wright assumed her contacts in the magazine world would greatly help his chances of selling his own designs.
He designed a famous series of drawings for each of the year’s 12 months, with the intention to sell them to the newly established Liberty magazine, which appealed to a younger, modern audience. Wright designed a beautiful assortment of geometrically abstract illustrations based on such themes as icicles, jewels, balloons, rain showers, baskets, desert landscapes, cacti, the fertile earth, gift boxes, and garden window vistas.
The most renowned piece of the assortment, officially titled “July Fourth,” featured a stunningly vibrant abstraction of a Fourth of July parade scene. The following description by Frank Lloyd Wright scholar, David A. Hanks, captures the essence of the piece perfectly:
“Appropriately, the American flag was the theme; in reverse at the right and conventionally in the center. Wright’s playful variations on the flag motif give depth to the composition and create the impression of a street, and the flags hanging at an angle strengthen this impression. The flags are superimposed on a vertical grid, so the overall effect is one of exciting movement in an elegant and dynamic composition.”[1]
Wright was known to be especially fond of the Stars and Stripes, as his son, John Lloyd Wright observed:
“Papa loved the five pointed white stars of the blue field. He said the red stripes meant to be brave; the white, to be pure; the blue, to be true.”[2]
Wright used the flag motif previously as part of the energetic and playful art glass designs for the Avery Coonley Playhouse in Riverside, Illinois (1914). I've experienced the joy demonstrated in those glass designs firsthand, and it seems only natural that Wright would employ a similar amount of energy and effort in the “July Fourth” illustration.
His cover illustrations were strong in their design, vibrant in their color, and unique in their approach; however, like many of his architectural designs, the Liberty covers were ahead of their time. Coupling that with the trend of publishers during this period using the more “Rockwellian” style of cover illustration meant that Wright was ultimately unsuccessful in selling his designs to Liberty magazine
Mr. Wright, however, was never one to let a good idea go to waste.
By the late 1930s, Wright had designed the Johnson Wax corporate office and Fallingwater. He was again on top of the world, with America embracing him as its home grown genius. In 1937, Town and Country magazine rode the wave of Wright’s revitalized popularity and used his 10 year old patriotic "July Fourth" design for the cover of the July issue.
His flag-inspired illustration would ultimately become the only one of the original Liberty designs to be realized as a magazine cover. Today, that same issue is exceedingly rare and prized by collectors as one of Wright’s most popular graphic designs. What once cost 50 cents in 1937 will run a present-day collector upwards of $950.
If you’re interested in learning more about Frank Lloyd Wright’s Liberty Cover illustrations, check out Frank Lloyd Wright: Graphic Artist by Penny Fowler. pm
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[1] David A. Hanks, (1989) Frank Lloyd Wright: Preserving an Architectural Heritage. Boston: E.P. Dutton. pg. 132.
[2] Wright, John Lloyd. (1946) My Father Who Is On Earth. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. pg. 45.
Eric O'Malley is a co-founder and contributor to PrairieMod. He lives in the Little Red House, a Mid-Century Modern ranch in suburban Chicago. You can email him at eric@prairiemod.com
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