In 1955, Frank Lloyd Wright, known as one of the most prolific architects of the 20th century, took a unique divergence in his career when he partnered up with F. Schumacher and Co. to design a line of furnishing textiles. While Wright is known today for his architectural accomplishments, his textile endeavors have been largely forgotten. This blog will highlight some of the textiles that Frank Lloyd Wright designed, which are now housed in the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection in Madison, Wisconsin.
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) was an architect born in Richland Center, Wisconsin, who is known for designing unique works of architecture. For a majority of his career, Wright focused primarily on residential family homes. However, in the last decade of his life, Wright was the busiest he had even been, and spent a great deal of time venturing on other projects, with public buildings such as the Guggenheim, New York, NY, religious buildings like the Beth Sholom Synagogue, Elkins Park, PA, and the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, Wauwatosa, WI, and prefabricated houses in Madison, WI. However, a little known side to Wright is his textile design initiatives in the mid-1950s in conjunction with the textile manufacturing company, F. Schumacher & Co., based in New York City. This partnership led to the creation of a 1955 line of textiles, called the Taliesin Line. Several additions to the line were released in 1956. The short-lived line was eventually fully phased out by the early 1960s, and was a largely forgotten aspect of Wright’s career apart from a rerelease of the line in 1987.
Helen Louise Allen (1902-1968), a professor in the School of Home Economics (now School of Human Ecology) at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and had worked with Wright on the curtain of the First Unitarian Meeting House in Shorewood Hills from 1949-1951. While no correspondence between the two is known to exist, the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection contains several of Wright’s textiles, which were part of Professor Allen’s initial bequest.
Textiles from Wright’s Taliesin collection were advertised in a number of magazines that were targeted toward anyone from average homeowners to interior decorators. F. Schumacher & Co. released a catalogue advertising the line, which featured different colorways and images of the textiles in use, for the initial release of the Taliesin Line in 1955. House Beautiful, an interior design magazine that was then edited by Elizabeth Gordon, a friend and admirer of Wright’s, published an entire issue advertising the Taliesin Line. There are also advertisements featured in the American Fabrics and Fashions Magazine no. 35, Winter 1955-56 edition.
I am a fourth year Art History major, and took the course Art History 468: Frank Lloyd Wright in Spring of 2025. The class visited different Wright buildings in and around Madison, Wisconsin, as well as the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection, where we were shown several of the textiles that Wright had designed as part of the Taliesin Line. Having already been affiliated with the Collection as a Collections Assistant, I was approached by my professor, Anna Andrzejewski, to potentially take on a research project regarding some of the earlier textiles that Frank Lloyd Wright designed. Under the guidance of Professor Andzrejewski, as well as the Research Director of the Helen Louise Textile Collection, Dr. Sophie Pitman, I undertook a research project that encompassed researching missing information about the textiles, such as the year they were released, the original price they were sold for, where they were advertised, and the titles of their colorways, as well as any other information I could find. The following blog outlines each textile I chose to research and the information I was able to discover.
Design 706 (P.D.US.0524)
Design 706, printed on heavy plain woven cotton described as “printed duck,” was one of the initial pieces in the F. Schumacher & Co. Taliesin Line of 1955. The colorway of this piece is listed as 753063 in the catalogue. According to the Stock and Price list from F. Schumacher & Co., this textile would have sold for $2.25 per yard, which is one of the most inexpensive textiles within the line.
Design 101 (P.D.US.0523)
Design 101 was another textile that was initially released in the Taliesin Line of 1955. The catalogue lists the colorway as 771518 Wood Brown & Tan, and was priced at $3.50 per yard in the F. Schumacher & Co. Stock and Price list from 1955.
Design 504 (W.L.US.3111)
Design 504 was one of the textiles included in the original Taliesin Line from 1955. It cost the most out of this selection of textiles from the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection at $9.00 per yard. Its colorway is listed as 721271 Gold. Uniquely, this textile still retained its original tag when it was accessioned into the collection.
Design 106 (P.D.US.0395)
Design 106 was released in 1956, after the initial line of F. Schumacher & Co. Taliesin Line. The textile would have cost $5.50. The design is reminiscent of the circular carpet pattern that Wright designed for his son, David’s, home, which would have also been in progress at the time that Wright was designing these textiles.(1) This particular textile also came into the collection with colorways attached to the back, highlighting alternative colors that the textile could have been purchased in.
- (Professor Virginia T. Boyd, HLATC 1997 Newsletter, p. 20)
Unknown Design (P.R.US.0401a-e)
Unlike the rest of the textiles in this selection, this piece has little information about it, and was not included in any of the F. Schumacher & Co. Taliesin Line catalogue. We do know, however, that the textile was part of Helen Louise Allen’s personal textile collection, and the little information that exists about this textile comes from the own information she provided on the textile. Possibly, this textile may have been a prototype with colorways of a textile that was never released. Part of a printed label on one of the colorways reads “-ORIAN,” which may offer some clue as to the textile’s origin. However, I was unable to find out more information about this particular set of textiles. Interestingly, there is also a small rectangular cut-out in the center of P.R.US.0401c, while the rest of the textiles are fully in-tact.
Design 510 (W.MM.US.1314)
Design 510 was also released in 1956, and cost slightly more than the other textiles in the Taliesin Line at $7.25. Design 510 also came with a colorways attachment featuring nine alternative colors. Unlike the other textiles in this selection, Design 510 includes Lurex, a metallic yarn, in its fabric blend, which creates a shimmering, tinsel-like effect.
Textile Usage
These textiles could have been used in many different ways depending on their type of fabric. Design 504 and Design 510 are heavier fabrics, and would have been used as upholstery fabric. However, lighter fabrics like Design 106 or Design 706 could have been used as fabric to make items such as curtains, for example. Additionally, advertisements also played a role in influencing how the textiles would be used. In the Taliesin Line catalogue, photographs depicting textiles used as curtains or as furniture upholstery guided consumers on what they could potentially use these textiles for. Magazines such as Home Beautiful and American Fabrics Magazine also depicted different interiors that utilized these textiles in various capacities, which also gave consumers an idea of different uses for these textiles. Different fabrics were likely responding to the need for different uses, demonstrating the diversity within the Taliesin Line for different components of a home.
For Further Reading
- Boyd, Virginia Terry. Frank Lloyd Wright & The House Beautiful. Washington, D.C.: International Arts & Artists, 2005.
- Christa C. Mayer Thurman. “‘Make Designs to Your Heart’s Content’: The Frank Lloyd Wright/Schumacher Venture.” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 21, no. 2 (1995): 153–191. https://doi.org/10.2307/4102822.
- F. Schumacher & Co. “Schumacher’s Taliesin Line of Decorative Fabrics and Wallpapers Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.” New York City, NY: F. Schumacher & Co., 1955.
- Gordon, Elizabeth. House Beautiful, November 1955.
Lily Adams is a Collections Assistant at the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection. She is a fourth-year undergraduate student pursuing an Art History and English double-major with a certificate in Medieval Studies, European Studies, and History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.