Product Description

Chicago-born architect Marion Mahony Griffin (1871-1961) is known primarily for a magnificent drafting style that incorporated architectural plans into dramatic and stylized landscapes. Yet standard histories of early twentieth-century architecture have not fully recognized her pioneering work, which went far beyond her early contributions to the Prairie School. "Marion Mahony Griffin: Drawing the Form of Nature" is the first book devoted to Mahony Griffin's graphic work and presents a new critical interpretation of her art. Marion Mahony Griffin was the second woman to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a degree in architecture and the first woman licensed to practice architecture in Illinois. After years of freelance drafting and design - most famously for Frank Lloyd Wright - she and her husband, architect Walter Burley Griffin, embarked on a career that catapulted them from Chicago to Australia in 1914 after winning the international competition to design the Federal Capital of Australia at Canberra. Marion Mahony Griffin's graphic art is defined by her innovative representations of nature. Her presentation drawings clearly illustrate that architectural design and forms of the natural landscape are inseparable. Botanical forms are also woven into her children's book illustrations and murals and are the subject of the series of "Forest Portraits" she made in Australia. The many illustrations in this book include vintage photographs of Mahony Griffin's life and work and commercial illustrations that have previously never been published, new photographs of her public murals, full-page color plates of her architectural renderings and "Forest Portraits", as well as an exclusive color facsimile of the "Forest Portraits" and captions as found in the New-York Historical Society's copy of Marion Mahony Griffin's unpublished memoir "The Magic of America."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #207544 in Books
• Published on: 2005-11-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 146 pages

Review
"The first work devoted entirely to Marion Mahony Griffin's exquisite architectural and botanical drawings....[The book is] a very important resource in the growing body of scholarship on the life and work of Marion Mahony Griffin. Publishing passages from 'The Magic of America' is a great service to both the scholarly and general readership." - Pauline Saliga, Executive Director, Society of Architectural Historians and Charnley-Persky House Museum Foundation, Chicago"

About the Author
Debora Wood is senior curator at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University. Her recent exhibits include Maybelle Stamper: Works on Paper and Currents: 25 Years of Collecting Modern and Contemporary Prints.

Customer Reviews

Overlooked Masterworks of Architectural Renderings and Landscapes
Anyone familiar with the early work of Frank Lloyd Wright, his Wasmuth portfolio, and the architecture of Walter Burley Griffin will know Marion Mahoney Griffin's incomporable architectural renderings. Like Julia Morgan and Theodate Pope Riddle, she was an extraordinary woman in the very exclusive men's club of turn-of-the-century architecture.
Those familiar with Mohoney's architectural renderings will perhaps question the tall, vertical format of this beautiful production. However, there is a virtually unknown aspect of Mahoney's drawings; and that is her "Forest Portraits". These magnificent renderings of trees are one of the most significant and unfortunately unknown endeavors of American landscape art of the twentieth century, and to encounter them is a delicious and unforgettable jolt.
This book/exhibition catalogue is a beautiful and scholarly production. Marion Mahoney, like Bernard Maybeck, was unfortunately and unwisely overlooked in "The Arts & Crafts Movement in Europe & America" (Thames & Hudson), and Mahoney is represented by a rendering of her husband's work in "International Arts and Crafts"(Victoria & Albert), two major exhibitions of the international Arts & Crafts movement that toured American museums. Maybeck is only given a passing reference in both books.
For anyone with a serious interest in American architecture, American landscape painters, and particularly the Arts & Crafts movement, this little jewel is essential.
John Arthur

Art from a Brilliant Architect
If the new residential architecture in and around Chicago in the early years of the 20th century found a broader and more appreciative audience it was due in no small part to the architectural renderings of proposed buildings created by MIT graduate Marion Mahony.

This book shows the inspiration from which organic architecture drew its forms, nature itself. Marion Mahony and her future husband Walter Burley Griffin, spent many weekends on canoe / camping trips along the river byways outside of the city of Chicago. Marion's exquisite artwork was one result. Their engagement was another.

While the art of Marion Mahony stands alone, the architectural work of Griffin / Mahony cannot be separated. As the years progressed, they practiced independently and under contract to Herman V. von Holst when Wright was off in Europe with Mamah Cheney. Then, Griffin entered and won the international competition for a new capital of Australia--the judges being duly impressed with the presentation renderings Mahony created for his entry.

Walter and Marion had both been early Oak Park Studio employees of Frank Lloyd Wright and deserve more credit than has been given heretofore in contributions toward bringing into being what has come to be known as the prairie style of architecture.

As Barry Byrne described it, the architects in the Oak Park Studio (William Drummond, Francis Barry Byrne, Walter Burley Griffin, Albert McArthur, Marion Mahony, Isabel Roberts and George Willis) engaged in internal design competitions. So that if new clients, say Mr. and Mrs. Thomas, came to call, the program of their needs would be set before all the architects on the staff. Then by a stated time, each one would present his or her idea as to what would be the best solution for the client's needs. Within the Studio, they would discuss and decide--and whichever design seemed most appropriate would be developed and presented to Mr. and Mrs. Thomas. The rest of the designs would be filed away for possible future use. No matter whose design it was, Wright, as the principal of the firm, took all the credit.

It is said that few of these drawings were signed, so the influence of Griffin or Mahony or the others is hard to trace. Even so, this book shows elements of Mahony Griffin's aesthetic that point directly to work that came from the Oak Park Studio. All of this can be explored further in Marion Manony Griffin's far-ranging autobiograhical work, "The Magic of America", which remains unpublished but is available to be read on line.