Frank Lloyd Wright Taliesin Complete Mahogany Dining Set 1955 Heritage-Henredon

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Frank Lloyd Wright Taliesin Complete Mahogany Dining Set 1955 Heritage-Henredon

About the Item

Rare complete original condition Frank Lloyd Wright Taliesen dining table and chair set (for 6), mahogany, 1955, Signed. Manufactured by Heritage Henredon. This set has been together since 1955 and I'd prefer for it to remain as such moving forward. FLW first and only "retail" furniture line. Henredon partnered with Heritage in order to produce the upholstered pieces. The line was comprised of over 60 pieces. Despite Henredon's massive advertising efforts, a media blitz that included the 86 year-old superstar architect using the furniture in photographs, his signature and likeness throughout the campaign (see photos), the collection failed miserably with furniture buyers. Production stopped within months of its debut... completely discontinued within 18 months, in fact. The collection was neither traditional nor modern enough for the decorating world and homeowner "herself" (the line's slogan was "furniture for the housewife.") Ironically (but unsurprisingly) many of the pieces from the Taliesin collection are of the most sought-after midcentury American production in today's market as it displays a masterful pulling together, by the 86-year-old architect, of so much of what had defined the American aesthetic throughout the first half of the 20th century. Ribbons of restrained, linear ornament serves to underscore the materiality and grandeur of the organic material, while at the same time reinforcing a perfect simple geometry, horizontals and verticals, a reference to the small, liminal space that exists between what is considered poetic, personal and aesthetic (Charles Rennie Mackintosh, for example) and what is considered a new, fresh impersonality and simplicity (the coffee tables of Florence Knoll, for example.)

Creator:
Heritage-Henredon (Maker),Frank Lloyd Wright (Designer)
Dimensions:
Height: 28.5 in (72.39 cm)Width: 100 in (254 cm)Depth: 42 in (106.68 cm)
Sold As:
Set of 7
Style:
Mission (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Mahogany
Place of Origin:
United States
Period:
Mid-20th Century
Date of Manufacture:
1955
Condition:
Wear consistent with age and use. Very good vintage condition. Minor age appropriate wear. Set has not been "refinished." It is in its original state. We've been told the fabric was refreshed in 2008, but the netting and structure of the chairs is original as well.
Seller Location:
Brooklyn, NY
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU4190315175512

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 firm Henredon, adding a decorative frieze-like element to the edges of tables and stools.

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.