Frank Lloyd Wright in Arizona 1929-1959

Images in this collection are from the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives at Taliesin West. The photographs of Taliesin West were taken by Robert Carroll May. May studied as an apprentice in the Taliesin Fellowship from 1939 to 1942.

The site for Taliesin West had been purchased by Wright in 1937 and some minor site work and temporary construction was done by Frank Lloyd Wright and the Fellowship before their return to Wisconsin for the summer.

Work continued on the walls and terraces of the buildings during the summer of 1938 by local laborers, with occasional supervision by a Taliesin apprentice. Questions regarding construction issues, and progress on the site was communicated to Wright by telegram to Taliesin in Wisconsin.

Work on many other projects, and pneumonia kept Wright in Wisconsin during all of 1939.

By 1940 there was a push to get to Arizona and to get the 'camp' up and running.

These photographs, made in 1940 show the completed Taliesin West in it earliest, and perhaps purest form.

The buildings would be reshaped constantly, for the next nineteen years of Wright's life and work in the desert.