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| Isabelle or Dorothy Martin? (photo: UB Archives) |
The photograph above has long been identified as Isabelle Martin wearing a dress designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. In fact it may be her daughter, Dorothy but that is beside the point. A document on Department of Art, University of California Berkeley letterhead with the title "Conversation with Darwin Martin, Jr., on April 12, 1979" but unsigned, includes the following:
[The] Conservatory was Mrs. Martin's idea: she loved flowers, and used them in abundance to give warmth to what she (or certainly he) considered to be a cold house. The photograph of her in a dress like a [John Singer] Sargent portrait: the dress is not by Wright at all (that's bullshit!); it is by Ivan Ivanovitch (??) a friend and student of Sargeant."
The document is intriguing given that Wright is known to have designed dresses for his wife, Catherine, and it enhances the idea that Wright would design everything if allowed by his clients. According to Daniel I. Larkin his grandfather had to stop Wright from designing the telephones and wastebaskets of the Larkin Administration Building.
I found Darwin R. Martin unreliable in our meetings when he visited Buffalo. He told me that Wright designed the Larkin R,S & T Building when it was definitely designed and built by the Lockwood, Greene and Company of Brooklyn which specialized in reinforced concrete framed "daylight factories." [see Reyner Banham, A Concrete Atlantis: U.S. Industrial Building and European Modern Architecture, 1900-1925 (1986)] He also said that the William R. Heath House was initially designed by William Heath and the contractor, Oscar S. Lang, but Heath brought in Wright to help them out. That is fiction. Martin Jr. and his sister had an intense dislike of Wright because he was the recipient of so much generosity from Darwin Martin -- possibly as much as $60,000 over the years. When Darwin Martin died during the Depression Wright ignored the destitute Mrs. Martin.
Who recorded this interview in April 1979 just a month before Darwin R. Martin passed away?
3 comments:
Still trying to find out what happened to Darwin Martin's cousin Belle Crouse who lived with Darwin and his wife from about 1899-1905. See the article Darwin Martin's moustache, any information would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Keith Sydney
Dear Jack & Co.:
I think I can shed some light on this: I think Darwin R. refers to the oil portrait of IRM by Ivanovitch, not the photo by Muller. That's the painting which apparently hung in one of the main stairway alcoves (in the 20s?). The painting and a similar portrait of DDM are now in the collection at Peeble's Island. It would be nice to display them somewhere on site, but they're well beyond the restoration period of significance, and I could never think of an appropriate place.
I think the Muller photo remains a mystery (though I agree that it's more like Dorothy at 16 years old than it is a matronly IRM)
Respectfully submitted from Brooklyn,
EJF
The document is intriguing given that Wright is known to have designed dresses for his wife, Catherine, and it enhances the idea that Wright would design everything if allowed by his clients. Credit Restoration
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