Olgivanna Lloyd Wright
Olgivanna Lloyd Wright 
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Olgivanna Lloyd Wright (1898 - 1985) was the third and final wife of Frank Lloyd Wright and had significant influence in his life and work, due in part to her extensive Theosophical associations. She was a Serb Montenegrin dancer. While her "language, cultural background and upbringing were almost exotically alien to his own," [1] she was critical in introducing Wright to Greek-Armenian mystic G. I. Gurdjieff, a man whom he alternately despised and admired.[2] She is a principal character in T.C. Boyle's 2009 novel, The Women.
Biography
She was born as Olga (Olgivanna) Ivanovna Lazovich in Montenegro on 27 December 1898. to Ivan Lazovich and Militza Miljanova, daughter of Vojvoda Marko Miljanov. She was the granddaughter of a famous Montenegrin writer, tribe leader of Kuči, Montenegrin duke, and hero Marko Miljanov. A long-time pupil and devotee of G. I. Gurdjieff (even after her involvement with Wright), she was also a nurse to Katherine Mansfield on her deathbed at G. I. Gurdjieff's Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man at the Prieuré des Basses Loges on 9 January 1923.[3] She had begun her career with Gurdjieff as a student of sacred dance, which she later mastered.[4]
She was married first to Vlademar Hinzenberg, a Russian architect.
Wright and Olgivanna married August 1928 in La Jolla, California, and honeymooned in Phoenix, Arizona.[5]
Iovanna Lazovich Lloyd Wright was Olgivanna's only child with Wright. Olgivanna's only other daughter, Svetlana Hinzenberg, adopted the surname Wright and married one of Wright's apprentices, Fellowship member William Wesley "Wes" Peters - who helped Wright ward off creditors and bankruptcy. When Svetlana Hinzenberg died in a car crash with her elder son, Daniel, Olgivanna curiously arranged for Wes Peters' subsequent marriage to Svetlana Alliluyeva, the youngest child and only daughter of Joseph Stalin. After producing with Wes Peters a daughter, Olga, in a marriage that lasted 20 months, Svetlana Alliluyeva came away with a less than glowing impression of the matriarch.
Bibliography
- The faraway music by Svetlana Allilueva. (Also known as Distant Music.) [6] Edition: 1st ed. New Delhi: Lancer International, 1984.
- The Fellowship: The Untold Story of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Fellowship by Roger Friedland and Harold Zellman, 2006, includes especially extensive and strong documentation on Olgivanna, her relationship with Wright, including "the strong influence the occultist Georgi Gurdjieff had on Wright and especially his wife Olgivanna"[7]
References
- ↑ Secrest. Frank Lloyd Wright Google books search.
- ↑ See Friedland and Zellman, The Fellowship, p. 118
- ↑ Friedland and Zellman, The Fellowship, pp. 76-78
- ↑ Katherine Mansfield “Olgivanna”
- ↑ Taliesin Preservation, Inc. - Visitors Guide - Be An Insider!
- ↑ Waltlockley.com
- ↑ Book Review of The Fellowship (Amazon Book Review)
Creative Commons Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olgivanna_Lloyd_Wright