FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT: Chairs of His Ward Willits House of 1902
Bernard Pyron
In the summer of 1961 I acquired three Ward Willits high back dining
room chairs, a high back with arm rests, a low back chair and the
Willits dining room table. I was selling pottery at an art fair in
Highland Park, Illinois when a lady came up and talked with me about my pottery.
She invited Clay Bailey and I to her house and gave us each one of the
Willits high back chairs. That summer Bailey traded me his high back
for a Willits lounge chair. Mrs Posner said that in the fifties the
owners of the Willits house threw out the Wright designed chairs and
tables and she got them or some of them. The house of Mrs Posner was
also by Wright, a few blocks closer to Lake Michigan than the Willits
house. .
The following quote on a Ward Willits high back chair in the St Louis
Art Museum is from:
http://www.stlouis.art.museum/
Arts and Design Frank Lloyd Wright , American , 1867 - 1959:
Dining Chair designed c.1903 56 x 17 1/16 x 18 3/16 in. (142.2 x 43.4
x 46.2 cm) oak with replacement synthetic leather upholstery Funds
given by the Decorative Arts Society 239:1977 probably made by John W.
Ayers, American, 1850 - 1914 One Fine Arts Drive, Forest Park, St.
Louis, MO.
I Photographed This Willitts High Back of mine In 1977 On Langdon Street In Madison
In 1977 Lyn Springer of the Museum came from St Louis to Madison to get it from me.
The following on the sale of another identical Ward Willits high back
dining room chair at Christie's to Tomas Monaghan, owner of Domino's
Pizza is from: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/
wright/index .html?offset=190&&& CULTURAL DESK | December 15, 1986
1901 Chair by Wright Sold for Record Price: A high-backed oak dining
chair designed in 1901 by Frank Lloyd Wright for the Ward Willits
house in Highland Park, Ill., has been sold at Christie's for a record
price at auction for a 20th-century chair and for any architectural
design object by Wright, ''I've been a Frank Lloyd Wright fanatic
since I was 12 years old,'' Thomas Monaghan said after he bought the
spindle-backed chair for $198,000 on Friday. Mr. Monaghan, chairman
and owner of Domino's Pizza Inc., of Ann Arbor, Mich., acquired the
chair, he said, for the National Center for the Study of Frank Lloyd
Wright, which he is building in Ann Arbor. Mr. Monaghan also owns the
Detroit Tigers baseball team. The chair sold for three times the
expected price and well above the previous high for any
architectural fitting or furnishing by Wright.
On Clayton Bailey's web site: http://www.claytonbailey.com/b
"Frank Lloyd Wright designed this chair in 1901 Watercolor on Paper by
Betty G. Bailey 14" x 20." "Clayton and a friend found a dining set of
Frank Llyod Wright furniture from the Ward Willits house in the
basement of another Wright house in Chicago. Our friend bought the set
of 8 chairs and oak table and Clayton was given this chair for helping
the friend move the set from Chicago to Madison, Wisconsin. We enjoyed
living with the chair for 40 years, and recently sold it in a
Christies auction." I wonder who that 'friend" could have been? Betty
Bailey had it partly right. But the first time Bailey and I were at
the Wright designed home of Mrs. Posner she gave each of us a high
back chair. Later in the summer of 1961 Bailey and I were back in the
north Chicago area for another art fair and I bought from Mrs Posner
the Willitts dining room table, another high back chair, that high
back with the arm rests we called the Papa Bear chair, and the low
back chair we called the Jestor's chair.
This Is A Photo Clayton Bailey Took And Sent To Me of His ChairThe Willits Lounge Chair I traded To Clayton Bailey For One of the Willits High Back Dining Room Chairs
Clayton Bailey's Chair At Christie's
Bailey's Willits lounge chair was sold at auction inDecember of 2001 by Christie's for $110,000 (also shown as $127,000). On page 75 Thomas A.
Heinz in his 1994 book Frank Lloyd Wright: Interiors and Furniture
shows a color photo of a Ward Willitts house living room chair
identical to the one above that Clayton Bailey owned from 1961 until
2001. The photo is by him.
Beth Cathers,of a New York art gallery, told me that the market was off for that December 2001 sale. Maybe it was too close in time to 911.
http://www.christies.com/lotfi
CHRISTIE'S
"AN IMPORTANT OAK SPINDLED ARMCHAIR FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, EXECUTED BY
JOHN W. AYERS. CO. FOR THE WARD W. WILLITS HOUSE, HIGHLAND PARK,
ILLINOIS, CIRCA 1901
Price Realized $127,000
PROPERTY BELONGING TO CLAYTON AND BETTY BAILEY Provenance Ward W. Willits
Dr. and Mrs. Poser, owners of Frank Lloyd Wright's Mary Adams house,
Highland Park, Illinois, 1905
Bernard Pyron
Christie's has a link to the December 2001 sale of Clayton Bailey's
Ward Willits arm chair, with information on the chair, and a good
photo of the chair. See:
http://www.christies.com/LotFi
went after it was given to Homer Fieldhouse, a Madison landscape
architect. I acquired the table along with the five Willitts House chairs
in the summer of 1961. Homer Fieldhouse of Madison, Wisconsin traded
or gave it to Robert
Graves, a son of Wright's caretakers of Taliesin. Robert Graves sold
the table in the eighties to Scott Eliott of Chicago who soon sold it
to Daniel Wolf of NY. There
the trail of the table grew cold. I had thought Daniel Wolf was a NY
art gallery but apparently the gallery sold only photos.
Two of My Chairs From the Willitts House. We called the one with the arm rests the "Poppa Bear Chair."
The Chair On the Right Is My High Back Willits Chair With Arm Rests that I Sold To the High Museum In Atlanta in 1979. Beside It Is One of the Three High Backs Without Arm rests.
These are two Ward Willits chairs that I owned from 1961 until 1978 and 1979. The high back chair without arm rests is one ofthree I had then. I sold the high back chair that had arm rests to the Atlanta Art Museum.
Remember that I sold one of the three high back chairs without arm rests to the St Louis Art Museum in 1977. A second high back just like it was sold to theMetropolitian Art Museum in 1978. The high back chair with arm restswas sold to the Atlanta Art Museum in 1979. A third high back chair without arm rests was sold to an unknown private collector in 1979.
Side View of My Low Back Willitts Chair
Front View of My Low Back Willitts Chair
The Willits Low-Back Chair above is Identical to the high backs but
not as tall. It was sold to Beth Cathers in 1985. The New York Art
Gallery Beth Cathers was associated with sold the chair to the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art.
This Willits low back chair was instorage in an apartment building on Madison's near east side and was taken in the summer of 1971 apparently by a renter who left it in theapartment house. Another renter who found it in the apartment sherented took it with her when she moved out. I got it back from her in 1985.
My Three High Back Willitts Dining Room Chairs Outside In 1965 at 525 West Washington, Madison, Wisconsin
Me With the Willitts High Back Chairs On Langdon Street In Madison In 1977.
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