a weekend afternoon visit to the "burnham, sullivan & wright" exhibit at architech's gallery

i feel very fortunate that we had the opportunity last saturday afternoon to attend the last day of architech gallery owner david jameson's "burnham, sullivan & wright" exhibit. almost immediately upon our entry we received a warm greeting and quick overview from david. i happened to notice my friend lynn becker there, admiring the framed drawings and blueprints hung on the walls. it was a nice to have a chat with him as well. lynn did a nice write-up on architech in his highly regarded blog, which can be viewed here.

david's gallery was packed with some remarkable pieces and i knew from the moment i walked in that i would be purchasing something for the bldg. 51 museum, despite the fact that i possess a much greater affinity towards three-dimensional building artifacts. there were however, a few tables along the walls containing some recognizable artifacts from the chicago stock exchange (i.e., stringer, baluster and elevator pilaster fragments).

resting next to some richard nickel photographs that i would later purchase was a bronze bust of julius caesar that sat on the office desk of notable chicago architect daniel h. burnham until his death in 1912. much of burnham's work was drawn from the classical style of greece and rome.

in addition to the nickel prints, the other "must have" piece i selected for purchase that day was a nicely framed sepia-toned gelatin-silver print of sullivanesque terra cotta ornament above the interior side entrance of the owatonna bank building designed by architect louis h. sullivan. the photographic image was taken in 1906 by fuemann & sons.

despite the gallery closing after a solid sixteen year run, i have every intention on returning to possibly acquire additional material david is willing to sell for the bldg. 51 museum.