The portrait of Edgar Kaufmann Sr., Excursion, was commissioned by Liliane Kaufmann from its artist, Victor Hammer, in 1929 while he was living in Florence, Italy. Hammer holds a special place within the Kaufmann family history as Edgar Kaufmann jr. studied painting under Hammer’s tutelage in Europe in the 1930s, and the Fallingwater collection also includes examples of his typographic work. Painted nearly a decade before the completion of Fallingwater, but while the family still vacationed in their Bear Run cabin, Edgar Sr. is portrayed in an open collared shirt and sweater vest and posed holding a walking stick—in tranquil contrast to his workaday suit-and-tie personae.

Though eighty years old, the portrait was not always displayed at Fallingwater, moving from the family’s Pittsburgh apartment in the William Penn Hotel to their Richard Neutra designed house in Palm Springs, California. When it arrived at Fallingwater in 1963, the year the house and its land were entrusted to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy by Edgar jr., it was hung on the east wall of the main floor, its present location, overlooking the dining table. Inherited upon his father’s death in 1955, Excursion officially came into the collection as a gift from Edgar jr. in 1989 and was displayed in the offices of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and later in the director’s office at Fallingwater before returning to its place of pride facing the hearth in 1994.

Recently conserved, a process that included removing decades of grime, soot, and nicotine build-up which gave Kaufmann a jaundiced appearance. Small details were also revealed, such as the knitted ribs of Kaufmann’s sweater vest, that had become hidden over time.  Like Kaufmann himself, who relished entertaining in his weekend house, Excursion continues to welcome each visitor to Fallingwater.

STORY BY SCOTT W. PERKINS, DIRECTOR OF PRESERVATION AND COLLECTIONS// PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANDREW BURKLE // PRODUCTION BY BURKLEHAGEN // SHOT ON LOCATION AT FALLINGWATER THANKS TO THE WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA CONSERVANCY

To visit Fallingwater: fallingwater.org

Don’t miss a single delicious thing!

Subscribe to TABLE Magazine