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Frank Lloyd Wright Windows Returned to Their Original Setting

The homecoming is a win in the restoration of Wright’s Martin House Complex
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Frank Lloyd Wright's Martin House complex in Buffalo, New York.Photo: Courtesy of Darwin House Complex

It’s homecoming for seven stained glass windows by Frank Lloyd Wright. The windows, which have suffered displacement and dispersement over the past few decades, are set to be returned to their original home, Wright’s Martin House, in early fall, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Wright built the Darwin D. Martin House Complex, a sprawling estate that includes a main house, carriage house, gardener’s cottage, conservatory, and pergola, between 1903 and 1905 in Buffalo, New York, for the wealthy businessman it’s named for. Things went downhill, however, once Martin lost his fortune in the Great Depression, leading the house into a decades-long deterioration and division that would result in some hundreds of its stained glass windows entering private and public collections.

Frank Lloyd Wright's pair of pier cluster casement light screens, created between 1904 and 1905, will be returned to their original setting in the Darwin D. Martin House.

Photo: Mary Matheson

Change is on the horizon, however, as the newly restored property, now a museum, will welcome seven stained glass windowpanes back from Canada's University of Victoria, which will first stage a show titled “So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright” before the donation.

Where are all the other windows, one might ask? The Times reports that New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of Modern Art in Winter Park, Florida, all hold Martin windows in their permanent collections. Though we're not holding out hope for many of those to be returned, the University of Victoria's return is a victory for preservation.