NOTE: from: steinerag.com website. (added here by Daniel Dominique Watts,FLLW Architectural preservationist, historian,& author.28May2023).

[ "Unidentified" Usonian Dining Room Chair, Circa 1939. Seat slants up from the back, the back slants back. The two back legs slant outward, the tops of both legs are cut at an angle as is the outside lower corner. The front leg slants outward ((D.Dominique Watts notation: & has a perforated pattern similar to Wright's Usonian designs)). The two center pieces slant down from the front to the back. We have identified 6 Usonian homes designed in 1939 that are very similar, but not exact Rosenbaum (S.267), Goetsch/Winkler (S.269), Schwartz (S.271), Sturges (S.272), Baird (S.277) and Sondern (S.279), One possibility is that it could be a "prototype". Front slanted leg constructed of solid wood, not plywood. This chair was acquired from Kelmscott Galleries in Chicago 1981. 3 B&W 8 x 10 photographs of the chair exist in the files ] source search from steinerag.com website. added 1981.

Further notations by Daniel Dominique Watts 28May2023: (Chair currently 2023 @ Milw.Art Museum collection)

This chair is still an "unidentified" chair design in their collection. Of the homes listed above by steinerag.com, it is "most similar" to 1939 Sondern-Adler house in K.C., as the protruding front leg is made of solid wood is also angled forward as at the Sondern house.

The only difference to the Sondern house chairs is the "perforation" at the angled front leg, as a perforated pattern design added by Wright. It can as well be a prototype for Sondern (or) for the Goetsch-Winckler house in Okemos, MI, however the chairs at Goetsch-Winckler have a vertical solid wood front leg, not angled.

((UPDATE: 7/6/23, I have identified the chair as from the living room of the '40 Affleck house by F.Ll.Wright. At least 1 side chair with slanted leg is shown in '42 photo I posted here under separate entry, and it matches the same in-reverse pattern shown on Affleck home lower entry window corner pattern panel))

I ruled out Sturges house as chairs are different. No perforated pattern was used on any furnishings at Sturges house.

No apparent perforated patterns were designed or made for Goetsch-Winckler either, unless it was a proposed design only.

The Schwartz house I ruled out as it has a very jagged sawtooth edge pattern that is similar to Southwest American Indian blanket patterns. I do NOT see this being used at the Schwartz house even as a prototype for it. The designs executed from the design drawings are very clear & distinctly different.

A "finite" set of possibilities exist:

There are only so many projects proposed for 1938-40 time period.

The 1939 date it has been given is most likely due to the Sondern house chairs which fit the closest to it of any known chairs. [* Update: 7/6/23: however it is from 1940 actually & only similar style with same slanted leg]

It could have been a prototype design for the unbuilt A. R. Blackbourn house for 1938, as it was the house design in a 1938 LIFE magazine prior to the Schwartz house as its built version. But no known prototype most likely would have been made as it remained unbuilt.

[Note: From the Taliesin Archives list of projects: Project 3806, 14 drawings, LIFE house for Albert R. Blackbourn (Minneapolis, Minnesota). Unbuilt Project Blackbourn, Albert R.]

Also a 2nd time Albert R. Blackburn is listed for 1939: [ Project 3919, 10 drawings, House for Mr. & Mrs. A. R. Blackbourn (Minneapolis, Minnesota). Unbuilt Project / House for Mr. E. J. Kaufmann (Pittsburgh, PA). Unbuilt Project]. In 1939 the Blackburn (spelled wrong in the archive listing), correctly as A.R. Blackbourn from the 1938 unbuilt project, was proposed for Edgar J. Kaufmann as a 2nd home on the Fallingwater site as a guard house/ guest home. It as well was unexecuted.

It's always possible Wright had a prototype chair made for the Fallingwater house dining chairs since it's a well known story that Kaufmann chose to not use Wright's proposed design for chairs & used the odd antique European stools present, instead. No chair designs for Fallingwater Dining Room chairs are shown on the design drawings however, nor even in sketches at Wright's Taliesin archives.

Wright may have made the prototype chair to go along with the drawings & perspectives for the 1938 LIFE magazine as mentioned above but it remains unknown & has a lost history of its existence.

The 4 unbuilt "Usonia 1 cooperative" clients in Okemos, MI, including: C.D. Hause, Sidney H. Newman, Alexis J. Panshin, J.J. Garrison, Erling B. Brauner scheme 1 unbuilt, Brauner #2 version was built later.

The design style chair could have been a proposal for the cooperative to show as a prototype or for the unbuilt Brauner version #1 when version #2 was being finished to help further show design intent to win over client' for home designs done.

BAIRD home: Style chair: It doesn't appear in drawings or clearly enough in photos of the interior to be able to verify if the front leg of the dining room chairs is slanted forward or not. 7 chairs are shown on plans, 2 more in bedrooms. 2 others are desk chairs with arms & wider on the plans. One for the study & a 2nd in the mother's bedroom.

Wright doesn't show any perforated panel pattern designs nor the dining chairs on his millwork sheet #2 for the house in Wright's Taliesin archives. It's very possible other sketches or drawings exist. Taliesin Archives had only 9 sheets in their set.

The Sondern pattern for their home perforated panel doesn't match the cut-out shown on the slanted chair leg for the chair.

Daniel Dominique Watts Dwatts62@yahoo.com

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