The Story
Flower in the Crannied Wall was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and Richard Bock for placement in the entrance alcove of the 1902 Susan Lawrence Dana House in Springfield, Illinois, where it can still be seen. While Wright knew he wanted a sculpture in this location, he was uncertain about just what he wanted. The final design, executed by Bock in terra cotta, combined ideas from both architect and sculptor and resulted in a naturalistic rendering of a female nude rising from a geometrically abstract column. Named after the Alfred Lord Tennyson poem, which is also shown on the back, the sculpture symbolically represents the human attempt to understand nature and the universe. Poem on back of Sculpture reads "Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, little flower but if I could understand what you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is".
Description
Flower in the Crannied Wall was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and Richard Bock for placement in the entrance alcove of the 1902 Susan Lawrence Dana House in Springfield, Illinois, where it can still be seen. While Wright knew he wanted a sculpture in this location, he was uncertain about just what he wanted. The final design, executed by Bock in terra cotta, combined ideas from both architect and sculptor and resulted in a naturalistic rendering of a female nude rising from a geometrically abstract column. Named after the Alfred Lord Tennyson poem, which is also shown on the back, the sculpture symbolically represents the human attempt to understand nature and the universe. Poem on back of Sculpture reads "Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, little flower but if I could understand what you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is".
