Frank Lloyd Wright "Taliesin 3" Table Lamp, Yamagiwa, 1994

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Frank Lloyd Wright "Taliesin 3" Table Lamp, Yamagiwa, 1994

About the Item

Yamagiwa frank Lloyd wright "Taliesin III" table lamp, cherrywood with geometric motif, label underside marked "Frank Lloyd Wright FDN 1994 / 00002 / S2310 / Yamagiwa." Measures: 29.75" H x 8.75" square. This is the highly sought after, limited production and extremely rare Yamagiwa production, the first run of the lamp post Taliesin, and was never made available in the United States. The FLW foundation retained the license for the design in the US and produces its own contemporary version (with noticeable aesthetic differences). The design of the table and floor lamp versions of the "Taliesin" series of lights stems from the original design for a large chandelier pendant Taliesin light (also available for sale, listed separately) that wright designed for the renovation of the original gymnasium of his hillside home school (1902) into a theater in 1933 (see Last image). He designed lighting pendants made up of square boxes and plywood shields to be suspended from the tall ceiling. These fixtures proved to be a lighting innovation, providing comfortable indirect lighting without the use of glass or shades. In 1952, when the theater was rebuilt following a fire, wright modified the design of the original fixtures for use in the dining room, reducing their size and attaching them to the oak beams overhead. He found their soft indirect light so pleasing that he had a standing floor lamp and table lamp version of the same design fabricated for use in his own home, Taliesin (see image 7). Wright's design for the lamps is inspired by both the rootedness and upword movement of trees. The roots of the tree rise from the ground with a sturdy base growing upward in a trunk. Branches grow out from the trunk in alternating directions in the form of solid wood boxes concealing the lights. Wood reflectors act like leaves, filtering and diffusing the light from above and below. Wright's signature red accents became blossoms. Captivating to look at with the lights off, when lit during the day the lamp comes alive like sunlight filtering down through a tree and its branches and leaves. Wright was so fond of this lamp that he eventually had five of them at Taliesin. The leaves and branches (blocks and platforms) can be rearranged, moved and removed to create the lighting experience that you’d prefer (up light, down light, direct light, etc.). See images 2-7. Taliesin III : Located in the Driftless region of southwestern Wisconsin near spring green, Taliesin (Welsh for “shining brow") is the name of wright’s 37,000 square foot home as well as the estate that includes buildings from nearly every decade of wright’s career from the 1890s-the 1950s. In 1976, Taliesin is designated as a National Historic Landmark and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Wright initially built Taliesin I (see image 12-13) in 1909 after his return from a year-long European jaunt with his mistress Mamah Borthwich Cheney (the wife of his neighbor and client). They were effectively ostracized from Chicago society (Wright had six children with his wife, Catherine Tobin), so they moved back to Wisconsin and built Taliesin to start their lives anew. On August 15, 1914, a servant at Taliesin went on a murderous rampage, setting fire to the private living quarters of Taliesin and killing seven people, including Cheney and her two children, with an axe (see images 13-14) Wright, who was out of town during the massacre, immediately rebuilt Taliesin, named Taliesin II (see image 15) yet the home completely burned down again in 1925, when faulty wiring sparked. Again, wright rebuilt, and thus the version of Taliesin that exists today is known as Taliesin III (see image 16). The property was the site not only of his own home and studio, which he expanded to make room for many of the new apprentices but also of the hillside school, a progressive high school he had designed for two of his aunts. This became the main site for the apprentices’ drafting room, dining room, assembly hall, and dormitory. Today, all of the property is managed by Taliesin Preservation, Inc., and the area of spring green is a lively site that hosts many restaurants, recreational facilities, and the world-renowned American Players Theater, as well as the school of architecture at Taliesin. The main house at Taliesin has 524 windows and is about 21,000 square feet. It was designed without gutters because the architect wanted icicles to form in the winter. “I wanted a home where icicles by invitation might beautify the eaves. So there were no gutters,” writes wright in An Autobiography. “And when the snow piled deep on the roofs and lay drifted in the courts, icicles came to hang staccato from the eaves. Prismatic crystal pendants sometimes six feet long, glittered between the landscape and the eyes inside.” Up until his death, wright was always modifying Taliesin. There are 200 documented changes, from major ones, like the addition of rooms, to minor ones, like painting walls.

Creator:
Frank Lloyd Wright (Designer),Yamagiwa (Maker)
Dimensions:
Height: 30 in (76.2 cm)Width: 9 in (22.86 cm)Depth: 9 in (22.86 cm)
Style:
Mission (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Cherry
Place of Origin:
Japan
Period:
1990-1999
Date of Manufacture:
1993
Condition:
Good vintage condition.
Seller Location:
Brooklyn, NY
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU4190321354942

Shop All Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright

Without question the greatest architect the United States has ever produced, Frank Lloyd Wright and his philosophy of “organic architecture” — of buildings that exist in harmony with their natural surroundings — had a profound influence on the shape of modern life.

Wright gave us some of the most elegant and iconic buildings in America: residences such as Fallingwater, in rural Pennsylvania, the Robie House in Chicago, and Taliesin, Wright’s own home; and masterful institutional structures that include the Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois, the Johnson Wax headquarters in Racine, Wisconsin, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Whenever possible, Wright designed the furniture for his projects, to ensure an affinity between a building’s exterior and interior.

Wright’s wooden chairs and tables for his “Prairie Houses” of the early 1900s have sleek, attenuated forms, influenced by both the simplicity of traditional Japanese design and the work of Gustav Stickley and other designers of the Arts and Crafts movement.

For Taliesin and several residential projects, Wright designed severely geometric chairs that are marvels of reductivist design. He revisited many of these forms in the 1950s in furniture licensed to the North Carolina firm Henredon, adding a decorative frieze-like element to the edges of tables and stools. Owing to a cross-licensing agreement between Henredon and Heritage at the time, Wright's lines of the era are usually labeled Heritage-Henredon.

The works on 1stDibs also show how happily Wright embraced new forms and materials. His desks and chairs for Johnson Wax have a streamlined look and use tubular steel to the same effect as designer Warren McArthur, who collaborated with Wright in the interiors of the Arizona Biltmore Hotel. For the Price Tower (1956) in Oklahoma, Wright designed angular wooden desks as well as upholstered pedestal chairs made of chromed steel — audacious furniture for his tallest completed building project.

The beauty of Frank Lloyd Wright’s furniture designs is that while many of us wish we could live in one of his houses, his vintage sofas, storage cabinets and armchairs connect us directly to his architecture, and to the history he made.