FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT is best known as a revolutionary American architect. A hallmark of his work is sensitivity to the natural environment—Fallingwater, the house he built over a waterfall, is a prime example. But Wright had a second career as a collector of and dealer in Japanese block prints, continuing this business until his death in 1959 at the age of 91. At times, he made more money selling prints than he did from architecture. A small but insightful exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, comprising prints, architectural drawings from Wright’s studio and archival objects, highlights Japan’s deep influence on his work. Wright was first captivated by Japanese art in 1893, when he saw Japan’s pavilions at the sprawling world fair in Chicago. His interest in Japan’s art and culture blossomed during several trips there starting in 1905. He opened an office in Japan in 1915 and lived there for a few years while building the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. “At last I had found one country on earth where simplicity, as nature, is supreme,” he wrote. He returned from his first trip to Japan with hundreds of ukiyo-e (woodblock) prints, planning to sell them in America. Wright often sold his clients art to hang on the walls he had built, explaining that they complemented his streamlined interiors. Japanese prints, especially traditional bird and flower images, had easily understandable motifs.

The prints were a commercial hit but Wright was also personally enthralled by them. “A Japanese artist grasps form always by reaching underneath for its geometry, never losing sight of its spiritual efficacy,” he wrote in “The Japanese Print”, a slim, 35-page book published in 1912. “These simple coloured engravings are indeed a language whose purpose is absolute beauty.”

According to Janice Katz, associate curator of Japanese art at the Art Insitute of Chicago, Wright favoured prints by Utagawa Hiroshige, a Japanese artist who emphasised environment over human structures. Prints such as Hiroshige’s “Goyu: Women Stopping Travellers” (pictured above) show buildings from a wide perspective. The flattened space and naturalistic detail of prints influenced architectural drawings in Wright’s studio.