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Many Masks: A Life of Frank Lloyd Wright
31Jan2008 Filed under: Architects Author: admin
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
With a talent for public relations and a habit of neglecting to mention his sources, Wright portrayed himself as a revolutionary genius. But his recklessly entangled lifewives, mistresses, chronic debt, scandalscontinually threatened to paralyze his talent. At a time when the architectural profession in the U.S. was booming, he was granted comparatively few commissions and had to turn to lecturing to earn a meager living. Gill, architectural critic for the New Yorker, was friends with Wright and his third wife. Debunking yet sympathetic, this engrossing biography is a masterpiece of sleuthing and interpretive skill; it separates the man from the self-made myths. Wright portrays himself as innocent hero-victim of a corrupt society, but here we see an artful dodger molded by a boyhood filled with shame and anguish. Gill evaluates which of Wright’s projects failed by the architect’s own standards, and which ones succeeded. Photos not seen by PW. First serial to the New Yorker. (November
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Much has been written about America’s best-known architect, and this new biography may be the most perceptive and entertaining book of the lot. Gill writes with authority about Wright’s long and turbulent career and with empathy about his equally turbulent private life. Gill’s long friendship with the Wright family provides added insights into the architect’s complex personality but does not prevent him from debunking some of the legends surrounding Wright, his upbringing and education, his architectural and social theories, and his relationships with clients. Witty, irreverent, and refreshingly honest, this is essential reading for anyone interested in architecure. H. Ward Jandl, National Park Service, Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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3 Responses to “Many Masks: A Life of Frank Lloyd Wright”
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admin
01月 31st, 2008 at 10:34 pm
By M. A Newman (Alexandria, VA United States)
The Story of Frank Lloyd Wright has been told many times. Aside from his many biographers he is also the inspiration of a well known book and hilarious (unintentionally, though) movie, The Fountainhead. Other than Michaelangelo, I do not know of another architecte who has rated such a treatment.
Wright’s life was heroic and this book is useful in seeing how that came to be. Gill is suited to the task, he not only knew Wright, but wrote the building column in the New Yorker for many years.
This book is a common sense take on Wright’s life. Gill explores many of the myths that Wright constructed around his life and finds that Wright’s creative powers were not always expended in the direction of his buildings. Wright was a genius who did not feel the slightest need to conceal this fact from the world. He was also a visionary who took the Eurpean architecture of its day and transformed it into the American vernacular. This feat he conttrasts strongly with Beaux Arts school which merely transplanted these European fads. Wright was a real original
The book is lavishly illustrated since all of Gills writing does not give the same feel for Wright’s genious as a hangful of these images provide. I think that were it possible color photographs might have provided a clearer view.
As Gill demonstrates, Wright at times could be a rascal, but he was also a genius even when when all of the artifice of his life is stripped away. This book is a welcomed addition to Wright biographical scholarship.
admin
01月 31st, 2008 at 10:35 pm
By JAD (The Sunshine State)
Brendan Gill’s writing is always sophisticated and utterly charming. Nowhere is that more evident than in this treasure of a biography of the man who - not without good reason - styled himself as America’s greatest architect.
It is an unquestionable fact that Wright was a genius in the aesthetic realm; it is also unquestionable that he was a bit of a mountebank in all realms; even so, one cannot help but enjoy the outrageous, larger-than-life swath he cut across the better part of the 20th Century in his Cherokee red luxury cars, pork-pie hat and theatrical cape. If he hadn’t been such a good architect, all of this would have been considered laughable, but anyone who has stood in his sublime interiors knows that the man knew his craft thoroughly.
Gill conveys all of this and more. His narrative is like a good long conversation by the fire with someone who not only knew the man but also had an appreciation of him that did not miss the quirks and foibles. Asides, such as the pulling of all the teeth, make this book a constant surprise. Wright, of course, had more than one mid-life crisis, and the various loves of his life brought every conceivable high and low. No wonder Mr. Wright’s saga has been turned into a grand opera! But Brendan Gill makes it more like the family stories of an eccentric uncle.
This is my favorite biography of Wright but it sits right next to Meryle Secrest’s — one really needs both of them to have enough perspective on the man and his accomplishments.
After all the anecdotes have been recounted, there are still some stories left to be told, by Wright clients who remember and students who are now getting on in years. One hopes that they, too, will put to paper their reminiscences, before it is too late.
admin
01月 31st, 2008 at 10:35 pm
By A Customer
If you do not know much about FLW’s life, this isn’t the book for you. It assumes that you are familar with his life-story as it jumps back and forth and drops names of people out of sequence to his chronological life story. For the neophyte reader there may be too much verbal description of floor plans. Despite these “flaws” (which forced me to do some background research in his other bios) the book is insightful and revealling as it peels off the layers of masks (most built by FLW himself). The book has many, many, black & white photos of his buildings and furniture - most of which I have not seen in other books. This would be a good companion book for someone who has read FLW’s autobiography or other bios. It is amazing he survived, professionally, in spite of his apparent self-destructive habits. I found myself comparing his life to Picasso’s - perhaps genius cannot be contained in an conventional life .