Masselink Doan House Pillow

In 1931 Frank Lloyd Wright and his wife Olgivanna circulated a prospectus to an international group of distinguished scholars, artists, and friends, announcing their plan to form a school at Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin to learn by doing. Eugene Masselink (1910-1962) came to the Taliesin Fellowship in 1933 with a degree in art and a desire to learn from Frank Lloyd Wright. He was one of Wright’s earliest apprentices at the Taliesin Fellowship. He soon became indispensable to Wright and acted not only as his personal secretary for over twenty years but also his designated muralist. He developed his own unique graphic style, using abstract natural forms, which was very compatible with Wright’s designs and philosophy.

Masselink’s time with the Taliesin Fellowship overlapped with the first three decades of the Fellowship and the last three decades of Wright’s life, which were undoubtedly his most prolific. Masselink was very busy assisting in Wright’s vision. During his off hours, Masselink found time to create artwork. He experimented with abstract line drawing studies using the three tools Wright used to create his designs- the T-square, the compass, and the triangle. Known as abstract pattern studies, the exercises developed by Masselink and others in the early years at Taliesin were produced through a process by which an overall natural form was graphically reduced to an assemblage of geometric shapes and typically set onto an orthogonal or angular grid. Masselink wanted his art to be evaluated according to the nature behind it, not just the final aesthetic appearance.