Editing Frank Lloyd Wright (section)

==== Art collecting and dealing ====
[[File:二代目市川門之助-Kabuki Actor Ichikawa Monnosuke II as Shinozuka in a Shibaraku (Stop Right There!) Scene MET DP132740.jpg|thumb|One of Wright's favorite prints, by [[Katsukawa Shunkō I]]. The [[Mon (emblem)|{{transliteration|ja|mon}}]] on the subject's sleeve is similar to a motif later used in the Imperial Hotel.<ref name=MeechPekarik />]]
Wright was also an active dealer in Japanese art, primarily {{transliteration|ja|ukiyo-e}}. He frequently served as both architect and art dealer to the same clients: he designed a home, then provided the art to fill it.<ref name="cotter">{{cite news |last=Cotter |first=Holland |date=April 6, 2001 |title=Seeking Japan's Prints, Out of Love and Need |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/06/arts/art-review-seeking-japan-s-prints-out-of-love-and-need.html |url-access=registration |newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref> For a time, Wright made more from selling art than from his work as an architect. He also kept a personal collection, which he used as a teaching aid with his apprentices in what were called "print parties";<ref name=MeechPekarik /><ref>Meech, Julia ''Frank Lloyd Wright and the Art of Japan: The Architect's Other Passion''. New York: Abrams, 2000.</ref> to better suit his taste, he sometimes modified these personal prints using colored pencils and crayons.<ref name=Hammer /> Wright owned prints from masters such as [[Okumura Masanobu]], [[Torii Kiyomasu I]], [[Katsukawa Shunshō]], [[Utagawa Toyoharu]], [[Utagawa Kunisada]], [[Katsushika Hokusai]], and [[Utagawa Hiroshige]];<ref name=Hammer /> he was especially fond of Hiroshige, whom he considered "the greatest artist in the world."<ref name=MeechPekarik />

Wright first traveled to Japan in 1905, where he bought hundreds of prints. The following year, he helped organize the world's first retrospective exhibition on Hiroshige, held at the [[Art Institute of Chicago]],<ref name=cotter/> a job that strengthened his reputation as an expert in Japanese art.<ref name=Hammer /> Wright continued buying prints in his return trips to Japan<ref name=Hammer /> and for many years he was a major presence in the art world, selling a great number of works both to prominent private collectors<ref name=cotter/> and to museums such as the [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]].<ref name=reif/> In sum, Wright spent more than $500,000 on prints between 1905 and 1923.<ref name=MeechPekarik2>{{cite journal |last1=Meech-Pekarik |first1=Julia |date=Autumn 1982 |title=Frank Lloyd Wright and Japanese Prints |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3258756 |journal=The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin |volume=40 |issue=2 |page=56 |doi=10.2307/3258756 |jstor=3258756 |access-date=March 5, 2023}}</ref> He penned a book on Japanese art, ''The Japanese Print: An Interpretation'', in 1912.<ref name=Stipe /><ref name=reif/>

In 1920, many of the prints Wright sold had been found to exhibit signs of retouching, including pinholes and unoriginal pigments.<ref name=Hammer /><ref name=MeechPekarik2 /> These retouched prints were likely made in retribution by some of his Japanese dealers, who were disgruntled by the architect's under-the-table sales.<ref name=Hammer /> In an attempt to clear his name, Wright took one of his dealers, Kyūgo Hayashi, to court over the issue; Hayashi was subsequently sentenced to one year in prison, and barred from selling prints for an extended period of time.<ref name=Hammer />

Though Wright protested his innocence, and provided his clients with genuine prints as replacements for those he was accused of retouching, the incident marked the end of the high point of his career as an art dealer.<ref name=reif/> He was forced to sell off much of his art collection to pay off outstanding debts: in 1928, the Bank of Wisconsin claimed Taliesin and sold thousands of his prints — for only one dollar a piece — to collector [[Edward Burr Van Vleck]].<ref name=cotter/> Nonetheless, Wright continued to collect and deal in prints until his death in 1959, using them as bartering chips and collateral for loans; he often relied upon his art business to remain financially solvent.<ref name=reif>{{cite news |last=Reif |first=Rita |title=Art/Architecture; The Master Builder Whose Other Love Helped Pay the Bills |newspaper=The New York Times |date=March 18, 2001 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/18/arts/art-architecture-the-master-builder-whose-other-love-helped-pay-the-bills.html |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231020141304/https://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/18/arts/art-architecture-the-master-builder-whose-other-love-helped-pay-the-bills.html |archive-date= October 20, 2023 }}</ref> He once claimed that Taliesin I and II were "practically built" by his prints.<ref name=MeechPekarik2 />

The extent of his dealings in Japanese art went largely unknown, or underestimated, among art historians for decades. In 1980, Julia Meech, then associate curator of Japanese art at the Metropolitan Museum, began researching the history of the museum's collection of Japanese prints. She discovered "a three-inch-deep 'clump of 400 cards' from 1918, each listing a print bought from the same seller — 'F. L. Wright'" — and a number of letters exchanged between Wright and the museum's first curator of Far Eastern Art, Sigisbert C. Bosch Reitz. These discoveries and subsequent research led to a renewed understanding of Wright's career as an art dealer.<ref name=reif/>