My key project is a set of drawings, a set of designs that Wright produced for a golf
resort in Nakoma, which is, a suburb outside of Madison, Wisconsin.
This very small drawing here shows both the resort structure and the buildings are meant
to resemble American Indian teepees.
As well as two sculptures that Wright designed; an American Indian man and an American Indian
woman.
This is clearly a career long interest of Wright's.
He was interested in American Indian culture and you do see instances of this very early,
in his Chicago days when he's working at the turn of the century.
He's using actual art and artifacts produced by American Indians.
There was very much a vogue for decorating with the art and artifacts of American Indians
and also sort of using imagery of American Indians in homes in this period.
Some people did this to such a degree that they had what were called Indian corners in
their homes.
Then you also have him out at Taliesin West in Arizona decades later designing and producing
a totem pole for his desert fellowship complex.
This concept that non-native Americans, namely white men, can adapt a sense of Americanness,
a sort of national identity separate from the identity of Europe by aligning themselves
with American Indian culture; it was one way of displaying Americanness.
Wright designed the resort and the accompanying American Indian sculptures in 1923 and 1924.
I chose this project in part because it is a very surprising project because the reference
to American Indians is so literal, it is so overt.
It's a sort of fantasy of Indian-ness; it's a fantasy that is not necessarily sensitive
to the specificities of various American Indian people.
He interchangeably uses the terms teepee and wigwam to refer to the resort structure here
as a very generalized kind of reference to American Indians.
Teepees are…they're sort of tent like, they're conical, they're usually portable.
Wigwams are very different structures that are-- that are domed; they are generally more
permanent.
These are two very different forms.
These figures are fascinating because they show a very stereotypical attitude to both
race and to gender.
The attire of the male Nakomis appears to be something that a Plains Indian would wear;
he's wearing a kind of headdress that is typical of Plains culture, whereas Nakoma is holding
an example of pottery, as is the small child beside her.
They both appear to be holding these pots and that would indicate that these figures
are more southwestern.
So it's the collapsing of various American Indian peoples into one, sort of, recognizable
visual compendium here.
He used references to other cultures, other traditions, other peoples throughout his career
and it's not relegated by any means to American Indian culture, so this is just one facet,
I would say, of his much broader interest in other cultures.