Graycliff: The Natural House

The summer estate that Frank Lloyd Wright designed for Darwin and Isabelle Martin in 1926-27 in Derby, NY was different from his earlier Prairie Houses in Buffalo. There was no art glass. It was a simpler building during a relatively fallow period in Wright's career. It had been subjected to a radical adaptive re-use by a religious order. These were some of the cautions given to a bus-load of architectural aficionados in 1980 to lower their expectations as they approached the site on Old Lake Shore Road. The complex, originally called Graycliff, was almost unknown. It certainly was underappreciated.

To read more of John H. Conlin's story, see page 6 of the Fall 2007 Heritage Magazine.

Intimate Spirits: Remembering the Art and Lives of Annie Crawford & Emma Kaan

Artists Annie Isabel Crawford (1856-1942) and Charlotte Emma Warton Kann (1860 - 1949) occupy a unique position in the cultural history of Western New York. As part of the rich legacy of the Arts & Crafts Movement in America, they are peripherally remembered today mostly from their associaiton with noted furniture craftsman Charles Rohlfs (1853-1936), a close friend who provided them with hand wrought frames for some of their earlier paintings and prints. Annie was also involved with Buffalo's Guild of Allied Arts, although her activities with that organization are mostly unrecorded. However, in making a more complete study of their artwork and especially their innovations in the field of printmaking, they are emerging as artists worthy of recognition both as a couple and as individuals.

To view the rest of this story by Michael James and David Martin see page 20 in the Fall 2007 Heritage Magazine. Subscribe now!

 

Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz

...For centuries, the awesome spectacle of the Falls has attracted sightseers from near and far. One of them was the Polish nobleman Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz (1758-1841), a learned and erstwhile traveler who settled in America and toured the country, endearing himself to early American society and hobnobbing among the rich and famous of the time. Among his acquaintances were George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

More than thirty year before Alexis de Tocqueville made his famous tour of America, including Buffalo and Niagara Falls, with his observations of life in the United States, Niemcewicz came to this country and made equally keen observations. Most of his letters and diaries were lost for decades before being rediscovered and published in the mid-20th century...

To read more of this story by Martin S. Nowak, see page 30 of the Fall 2007 Heritage Magazine.

 

 

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