The Journal Times Online - Racine, Wisconsin

Frank Lloyd Wright was beaten down, but not beaten, by the two fires that destroyed the residential part of Taliesin, his beloved home in Spring Green, Wisconsin.

Randolph C. Henning, an architect and a Wright scholar, presents a new look at Taliesin, the nearby Hillside school buildings, and the Romeo and Juliet windmill in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin - Illustrated by Vintage Postcards (University of Wisconsin Press).The publication of the book is part of the celebration of Taliesin's centennial.

Taliesin was Wright’s studio, and farm, as well as his home. Wright designed it in 1911 for he and Mamah Borthwick Cheney, whom Henning characterizes as Wright’s “soul mate,” after they returned from their scandalous escape from their families and their unfulfilling lives, to Europe. They had left their children and spouses behind in Oak Park when they went to Berlin and Fiesole, Italy, They were pariahs when they returned to the United States in 1910, and could no longer live in Oak Park.

Taliesin is magnificent. Like many of Wright’s buildings, one sees it differently on each visit. However, many people were, and are, drawn to it because of tragedy, rather than because of the architecture: Cheney and six others, including her two children, were murdered in 1914, when they were attacked by an angry servant who had set fire to the house.

Wright rebuilt Taliesin, only to have it burn again in 1925 in an electrical fire. Wright never finished working on the sprawling complex, remodeling it until his death in 1959. Taliesin was 12,000 sq. ft. before the first fire, and 24,000 sq. ft. when Wright died. As large as even the first Taliesin was, it was referred to as a "bungalow" in some postcards.

Henning’s book, which has just been published, presents more than 50 postcard views of the house and the other buildings. Many of the postcards are called real photo postcards: they look like postcard-size black and white prints, rather than the mass-produced commercial postcards common today. They may have been produced in small quantities by local photographers, in their darkrooms.

The most startling images are the views of Taliesin after the 1914 fire. These photos of the devastation, and of the people drawn to Taliesin to see it for themselves, are the kind that would be instantly uploaded to Facebook, You Tube, and other social media today. But, a hundred years ago, they were published as postcards. One of the pictures shows Wright in the distance, pointing to the photographer. We can only try to imagine what he was thinking as he confronts the photographer, as we consider the destruction shown in the photos, and remember what Wright wrote about his grief in his Autobiography.

Henning started collecting Wright related postcards about eight years ago. Most of the postcards are from his personal collection, and have never been published before. Regrettably there are few views of Taliesin II, as some people refer to the residence from 1914-1925, between the two fires.

The collection is enhanced by Henning’s transcription of the messages on the back of some postcards (“This is the scene of the Love Cottage I was telling you about.” - postmarked August 14, 1920) and on the front of others. Another correspondent wrote on the back of a card which shows three children in front of the house, one perched on the roof, “...Why the hell don’t they keep those brats out of the picture?”

Henning, an architect in Lewisville, North Carolina, who previously published At Taliesin: Newspaper Columns by Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Fellowship, 1934-1937, is also the author of The Architecture of Alfred Browning Parker: Miami’s Maverick Modernist, which will be published in September by the University Press of Florida.

Henning will speak at Taliesin Saturday May 28 about his collection of Wright postcards, and sign copies of the book. His visit to Spring Green marks the end of an exhibit, “Frank Lloyd Wright: Built Works in Historic Postcards” which runs from April 28-May 29 as part of the centennial celebration. Tickets are required for Henning’s talk. Go to www.taliesinpreservation.org or call 877.588.7900 for more information.