II.

Life

Wright was born either in Richland Center, or in nearby Bear Valley, Wisconsin, and grew up largely under the tutelage of his mother, Anna, and his aunts and uncles on farmland near Spring Green, Wisconsin. His father, a musician, abandoned the family in 1885. Wright briefly studied engineering at the University of Wisconsin, displaying a knack for drawing, and in 1887 he moved to Chicago, Illinois. From 1888 to 1893 he worked as an assistant at the Chicago architectural firm of Adler and Sullivan, learning much before embarking on an independent architectural path in 1893.

Wright’s life was marred by marital problems, and the scandals connected with them scared away many potential clients. He left his first wife, Catherine, and their six children in 1909, after 20 years of marriage, and went to Europe with Mamah Cheney, the wife of a client. Still married to Catherine, he returned to Spring Green in 1911 with Cheney. There, he built a home and studio that he called Taliesin after a Welsh word meaning “shining brow,” a reference to the building’s situation, clinging to the brow of a hill. Tragedy struck in 1914, when a servant at Taliesin murdered Cheney, her two children, and four other people, and set the house on fire. Wright began rebuilding Taliesin soon afterward.

After Catherine granted him a divorce in 1922, Wright married Miriam Noel, an emotionally unstable woman from whom he soon separated. In 1927 he obtained a divorce from Miriam. Only with his third wife, Olgivanna Milanoff, whom he married in 1927, did he find the restful environment he needed to foster his creativity. Wright and Olgivanna lived at a rebuilt Taliesin, which became his studio and a center for training apprentices in his architectural principles. Those who came to study with Wright at Taliesin also helped farm the land. In the mid-1930s Wright built Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona, and from then on, the studio and apprentices moved to Arizona for the winter.

Wright also supported himself by lecturing and writing. Among his writings are An Autobiography (1932, revised 1943) and The Future of Architecture (1953), a collection of his articles from the 1930s.