The Minneapolis Institute of Arts will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its Purcell-Cutts House, a masterpiece of Prairie School architecture. It was designed by local architects William Gray Purcell and George Grant Elmslie (for Purcell and his family in 1913) and bequeathed to the MIA in the 1980s. Purcell & Elmslie was the second most commissioned firm of the Prairie School style of design after Frank Lloyd Wright.
MIA is curating a free exhibition of the design work of Elmslie (1869-1952) who went on to produce a number of banks, train stations, and buildings mostly in the Midwest. Along with dozens of drawings, historic photos and selected objects like Elmslie’s 1912 oak and leather armchair, his one-of-a-kind dining room suite made completely of Cuban white mahogany will be on display (May 26-August 26, 2013).
