Overview
Frances Nemtin met Frank Lloyd Wright in the mid-1940s, when she was arranging a show of his work at the Milwaukee Art Institute. She soon gravitated to Taliesin, Wright's estate in southwestern Wisconsin.This legacy of Wright's farming forebears, on which the architect built, rebuilt, modified, refined, tinkered, and innovated from 1911 until his death in 1959, is a singular place that has seen widely diverse uses over the last ninety years. It has been a self-sufficient farm, a boarding school, a world-class architectural studio, a refuge for Wright's family and friends, and a school for the study of architecture. The men and women who apprenticed here received a unique education, and they came away with a lifelong loyalty and respect for their fellowship and their mentor.
At Taliesin, Ms. Nemtin did a little of everything farm work, upholstery, writing, and cooking. She led tours, poured concrete, and played in the chamber quintet. And she married a Taliesin apprentice, bore children, and chose to stay on the estate for the rest of her life.
Ms. Nemtin has been the manager and designer of the Taliesin flower gardens for over twenty years. There may be no more knowledgeable living author on the subject of Taliesin and the Jones Valley.
Rich in anecdote, precise in description, and sometimes very funny, this charmingly discursive tour of the fellowship includes a little history, a bit of botany, and a pinch of art criticism. Rarely seen photographs and paintings from the fellowship archives evoke the beauty of Taliesin in all seasons, and the excitement of living in the proximity of genius.