”Any interested parties?” we inquired of Bill Struve, proprietor of the Struve Gallery, 309 W. Superior St., where until Friday there is an exhibit called ”Parallel Lines, Frank Lloyd Wright.”
We were wondering about a possible purchaser for the dining table and six elegant chairs with tall backs, valued at $1.6 million, that Struve had acquired at a Christie`s auction awhile back, putting it on record as the highest-priced piece of Wrightiana.
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”We had a party on it the other night,” replied the jovial Stuve. ”We sit there and have beers on it all the time.”
He uses it????
”Absolutely! It is a table and chairs,” replied Struve. ”It may be very expensive, but it is very useful. Yes, I would sell it to somebody who would use it. There`s no reason why tables can`t last for hundreds of years. And yes, it was in very good shape when I acquired it,” he added. ”The family was aware of how wonderful it was.”
The set, all in a rich medium shade of oak, dates from 1904, and came from a famous Wright house, the G. Barton House, on the Darwood Martin Estate in Buffalo, N.Y. Barton was the son-in-law of the Martins.
Another highlight of the show at the Struve is a fabulous grillwork elevator door by Louis Sullivan. ”His work was sort of a prelude to the design qualities of Frank Lloyd Wright,” explained the gallery owner. ”Along with that is a second piece, a bronze metal frieze that was another part to the elevator. These came from the Stock Exchange Trading Room, the replica of which can be seen at the Art Institute. I bought it from a gentleman who had it many years,” says Struve. ”The Art Institute has one, too.”
Also in this exhibit-which is a definite must-is a house`s worth of exceptional Wright windows and doors with patterns of lines and colors. There is another large Wright breakfast table and chairs, a formal desk, many chairs and an employee`s desk.
In accessories, there are a few pieces of Teco, the wonderful copper-green pottery that Wright designed for the company of the same name. ”Teco was the real Prairie School potter,” says Struve. ”It was to the Prairie School what Frank Lloyd Wright is to architecture.”