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(This post was last modified: Yesterday 01:18 AM by C C.)
https://www.architecturaldigest.com/stor...dead-white
EXCERPTS: Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect of the Guggenheim Museum, hated white paint. In March of 1958, Wright, who was ninety years old, made this a point of contention between himself and James Johnson Sweeney, the museum’s new director. Sweeney wanted only his office in the new building to be painted white, initially. But soon after that matter had been settled, he began to envision all the exhibition spaces being painted in the same fashion. On March 17, Wright composed a memo about this to Harry Guggenheim, who was managing the building’s construction. He implored Harry to change Sweeney’s mind about using white paint:
In his letter to Guggenheim, Wright claims white paint is “devastating,” suggesting that it brings damages. He also calls it “makeshift,” implying that it is crudely fashioned for the sake of expediency. He says that using white paint would transform the building into a shroud—which is used to wrap the dead prior to burial—for the display of art. He adds that white paint is a “menace,” something that threatens the building’s progress or success. He insists that white paint is a “grave” maker, because of its ability to destroy the building outright. In Wright’s analogy, the building is alive, and white paint is a killer. While his rhetoric is a bit over the top, it also reveals the intensity of Wright’s objections. Beyond that, they disclose his way of thinking about white paint, which was vigilant. It seemed apparent to me that Wright was not just being dramatic in his condemnation of white paint. He saw a real risk in it.
On April 3, Wright wrote to Guggenheim again, this time imploring that “White is a color—the loudest color of them all. A true artist would not paint for a white background which nature seems to use most sparingly for accent only.” With this bitter note of emphasis, Wright was taking a jab at both Sweeney and the artwork he hoped to exhibit. He ended the letter with another mortal analogy, comparing a white-painted room to a tomb, to point out the absurdity of Sweeney’s choice: “Human sepulchre is white. Why?”
But Wright’s passionate letters did not change Guggenheim (or Sweeney’s) mind. [...] The conflict between Wright and Sweeney over the museum’s interior came to an end, but without the satisfaction of a resolution that resembled a shared perspective. They both felt that big things were at stake in the choice of paint colors, even as they disagreed about the most important feature of the new museum. Wright wanted people to be able to see the building’s contours in natural and electric light, so he suggested painting the interior in ivory. Sweeney wanted to draw people’s attention to the artworks, so he insisted on painting the walls in a dead-white.
At first, it seemed to me that there was not much of a variation between their preferences, but taking a closer look helped me to understand how they differ. Ivory has a warm undertone, often of yellow but sometimes of pink or brown, while a dead-white has a cool undertone, lightly inflected with gray or blue. Ivory reflects a mixed composition, while a dead-white is meant to appear “pure,” even when it is not. Ivory responds to light with a softer tone than a dead-white, which is aggressively reflective.
[...] Not all of Wright’s suggestions for painting the museum were so subtle. He initially proposed a deep pink-orange color called Cherokee Red for the exterior... (MORE - missing details)
Is the Guggenheim really worth it? The museum tour. ... https://youtu.be/KZ7qvNnW7no
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/KZ7qvNnW7no
EXCERPTS: Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect of the Guggenheim Museum, hated white paint. In March of 1958, Wright, who was ninety years old, made this a point of contention between himself and James Johnson Sweeney, the museum’s new director. Sweeney wanted only his office in the new building to be painted white, initially. But soon after that matter had been settled, he began to envision all the exhibition spaces being painted in the same fashion. On March 17, Wright composed a memo about this to Harry Guggenheim, who was managing the building’s construction. He implored Harry to change Sweeney’s mind about using white paint:
White—a devastating color under daylight—is the sum of all colors. Even used as a frame of reference for paintings (to say nothing of sculpture), it is a makeshift or a menace. Here by intention (and bequest) we have a great work of sculptural architecture calculated to set up a picture in the atmosphere of a harmonious series of daylighted-forms. This setting is new and may stimulate a new impulse in the art of painting whereas the old cliché of a white shroud for the painting seen by gaslight may in future well be called not only, the “grave of modern art” but now the destruction of a great building.
Wright was known to be arrogant, and his self-importance is on full display here. He certainly was not known for being compromising, and he was clearly frustrated about losing control over some aspects of the museum’s completion. Wright was confident that his building was so important that it would likely inspire a new movement in painting—even as he knew that it had been made to exhibit several concurrent “new movements” in painting. But I don’t think that’s all that is going on here.In his letter to Guggenheim, Wright claims white paint is “devastating,” suggesting that it brings damages. He also calls it “makeshift,” implying that it is crudely fashioned for the sake of expediency. He says that using white paint would transform the building into a shroud—which is used to wrap the dead prior to burial—for the display of art. He adds that white paint is a “menace,” something that threatens the building’s progress or success. He insists that white paint is a “grave” maker, because of its ability to destroy the building outright. In Wright’s analogy, the building is alive, and white paint is a killer. While his rhetoric is a bit over the top, it also reveals the intensity of Wright’s objections. Beyond that, they disclose his way of thinking about white paint, which was vigilant. It seemed apparent to me that Wright was not just being dramatic in his condemnation of white paint. He saw a real risk in it.
On April 3, Wright wrote to Guggenheim again, this time imploring that “White is a color—the loudest color of them all. A true artist would not paint for a white background which nature seems to use most sparingly for accent only.” With this bitter note of emphasis, Wright was taking a jab at both Sweeney and the artwork he hoped to exhibit. He ended the letter with another mortal analogy, comparing a white-painted room to a tomb, to point out the absurdity of Sweeney’s choice: “Human sepulchre is white. Why?”
But Wright’s passionate letters did not change Guggenheim (or Sweeney’s) mind. [...] The conflict between Wright and Sweeney over the museum’s interior came to an end, but without the satisfaction of a resolution that resembled a shared perspective. They both felt that big things were at stake in the choice of paint colors, even as they disagreed about the most important feature of the new museum. Wright wanted people to be able to see the building’s contours in natural and electric light, so he suggested painting the interior in ivory. Sweeney wanted to draw people’s attention to the artworks, so he insisted on painting the walls in a dead-white.
At first, it seemed to me that there was not much of a variation between their preferences, but taking a closer look helped me to understand how they differ. Ivory has a warm undertone, often of yellow but sometimes of pink or brown, while a dead-white has a cool undertone, lightly inflected with gray or blue. Ivory reflects a mixed composition, while a dead-white is meant to appear “pure,” even when it is not. Ivory responds to light with a softer tone than a dead-white, which is aggressively reflective.
[...] Not all of Wright’s suggestions for painting the museum were so subtle. He initially proposed a deep pink-orange color called Cherokee Red for the exterior... (MORE - missing details)
Is the Guggenheim really worth it? The museum tour. ... https://youtu.be/KZ7qvNnW7no