Author: Jim Charlier
Ever wonder how a Frank Lloyd Wright interior comes together? It’s a big job for people that are part historian, sleuth, archivist, preservationist, researcher, and mindreader. This is a rare opportunity to see what goes into restoring an historic interior, and how to get it right.
Frank Lloyd Wright designed a variety of “summer houses” set along lakeshores, riverbanks, and forests. Planned as seasonal retreats, their schemes were less formal than Wright’s urban and suburban dwellings, and this simplicity was most often seen in the design of their interiors.
Mr. Perkins will present examples from across the architect’s portfolio, exploring the casual side of a Wright interior. The presentation will take a look at Graycliff, the summer home of Darwin and Isabelle Martin in Derby, NY, where informality and openness extended to the furnishings – where wicker and reed furniture, plywood, summer rugs, and fabrics came to symbolize a summer style for the family.
Pamela Kirschner will summarize the findings in the 2014 Graycliff Historic Furnishings Report.
Furnishing Graycliff and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Other Summer Homes With Pamela G. Kirschner and Scott W. Perkins
Wednesday, September 28, 6-7:30pm
Graycliff Annual Member’s Meeting starts at 5:30 p.m.
Buffalo History Museum | One Museum Court, Elmwood Avenue and Nottingham Terrace, Buffalo
Admission $7 Adults, $5 Seniors and students; FREE for Graycliff and History Museum members
Scott W. Perkins is Director of Preservation at Fallingwater, a property entrusted to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, in Mill Run, PA. Previously the curator of collections and exhibitions at Price Tower Arts Center, Bartlesville, OK, he is a PhD candidate in Design History at the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design and Culture in New York City, NY, where he received his MA and MPhil in the same field, and holds a BFA in Interior Architecture from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, IL and an AA in Interior Design from Madison Area Technical College, WI. He sits on the Board of Visitors for the Interior Design Division of the University of Oklahoma College of Architecture, and in October 2012, began a second three-year term on the Board of Directors of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, an organization whose sole mission is to protect and preserve the architectural legacy of Frank Lloyd Wright.
Pamela G. Kirschner is a Wooden Artifacts Conservator with a private practice. She received a Master of Science degree in Art Conservation from the University of Delaware/Winterthur Museum’s Art Conservation Program, DE, in 1998, and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Communication Arts/Media with a minor in photography from Virginia Commonwealth University, VA. She specializes in the preservation and conservation of furniture and wooden artifacts from the twentieth-century, and has researched and treated Frank Lloyd Wright furnishings extensively as a Kress Fellow, and through funding from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Heritage Preservation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She served on the board of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy and is currently serving as consultant on their Architecture Committee.