Toward the end of his life, in 1955, Frank Lloyd Wright produced the “Taliesin Ensemble,” a line of home furnishings for those who did not live in one of his houses. Wright partnered with numerous firms to complete the project, among them Heritage-Henredon, with whom he produced a line of furniture, and the Martin Senour Company (a division of Sherwin-Williams), with whom he developed a line of paints.

Featured here is length of fabric produced in partnership with F. Schumacher and Company as part of Wright’s Taliesin Line. The collection included six printed fabrics, seven woven fabrics, and four wallpapers. This example features a fine linear design in warm natural colors, reminiscent of a stained glass window that Wright designed for the Darwin D. Martin House, built between 1903 and 1905 in Buffalo, New York. Although credited to Wright, the textile was designed by Ling Po, a fellow at Wright’s architectural school, Taliesin West. Po joined Taliesin in 1946, and later became chief rendering artist at the Taliesin Associated Architects.

 

Mae Colburn is a master’s student in the Parsons-Cooper Hewitt History of Design and Curatorial Studies program. Her focus is textiles.

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