Four Extemely Rare and Iconic
Frank Lloyd Wright Chairs
Acquired by the Two Red Roses Foundation
January 7, 2020
Frank Lloyd Wright set of four high-back dining chairs from the Ward W. Willits House, Highland Park, Illinois, c. 1902, executed by John W. Ayers, Co. Stained white oak, fabric upholstery. Each: 45 ¼ in. high; 16 7/8 in. wide; 17 5/8 in. deep. Two Red Roses Foundation Collection. Click to enlarge.
PALM HARBOR — Rudy Ciccarello, Founder of the Two Red Roses Foundation of Palm Harbor, Florida, is very pleased to announce the acquisition of four extremely rare and iconic high-back dining room chairs designed by renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959). Crafted in 1901 for the Ward W. Willits House, in Highland Park, Illinois, the four dining room chairs represent the rediscovery of lost Wright masterpieces and are part of a set of eleven dining chairs of alternating heights. Made of stained white oak with dark fabric seat covers, they have an imposing verticality perfectly suited to their surroundings, forming part of the pattern of strong horizontal, vertical, and diagonal forms Wright utilized throughout the house. The chairs retain their original finish and have never been restored, offering a rare opportunity to visualize Wright’s original intent.
The chairs from the dining room suite remained in the Willits house from 1902 until the early 1950s when the house and its contents were sold. They have remained in a private Chicago collection until recently consigned to auction. Other examples are held by institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the St. Louis Art Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.
The Willits residence is widely considered to be Wright’s first residential masterwork in the Prairie School style. The early, groundbreaking designs of the furnishings of this house were extremely influential both domestically and abroad, hastening a rethinking of domestic design in terms of sleek, modern geometric forms. The starkly simple and powerful Willits dining chairs - one of the most important designs by Wright – stand as icons of modernism.
Photograph of the dining room of the Ward W. Willits House taken in 1902 — the same year in which the furniture is thought to have been made. Photo: The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, AZ/Art Resource, NY/Scala, Florence. © Frank Lloyd Wright, DACS 2019
The Willits dining chairs, along with other significant works by Wright and the Prairie School, will be on display in the forthcoming Museum of the Arts and Crafts Movement in St. Petersburg, Florida. The only major museum in the nation dedicated to this important movement in the history of American decorative arts (c. 1900 – 1930), the $90 million, 5-story, 144,000-square-foot building will open in Spring 2020.