Many Masks: A Life of Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright is the towering figure in modern architecture and design, a genius of the first order who profoundly altered the look of twentieth century homes and cityscapes. That America's greatest architect should also have been one of the greatest characters of recent times only enhances that legend. Arrogant in his treatment of clients and their money, scandalous in his relations with three wives and assorted mistresses, a flamboyant poseur who constantly needed to reinvent himself, Frank Lloyd Wright had the outrageous good fortune to be the Great Man he always claimed he was. Brendan Gill's provocative, incisive, and delightfully readable MANY MASKS captures the Great Man in all his brilliance and contradictions. Gill, a NEW YORKER writer of fifty years standing, a bestselling author and biographer, a lifelong student of architecture and a friend of Wright and his family, is the perfect match for his fascinating subject. Gill traces the full span of Wright's long and tumultuous career, from his apprenticeship with Louis Sullivan through his breakthrough designs for such masterpieces as Fallingwater and the Johnson Wax buildings and finally to Wright's renaissance in his old age when he completed such enduring monuments as the Guggenheim Museum and Beth Sholom Synagogue. Written with exuberant wit and revealing intimacy, illustrated with 300 photographs and drawings, Gill's MANY MASKS is the finest, fullest, and most entertaining Wright biography we are ever likely to have.