Artist Lonn Frye devoted most of his professional life to the field of architecture. He started young, spending countless hours with his Erector Set, building… the future. Lonn earned both his undergraduate and Master’s degrees in Architecture at the University of Illinois, before receiving his first job offer from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill straight out of school. There, he was put to work on the design team for the John Hancock Building in Chicago. As a reward for his hard work, the architecture firm granted him a year’s sabbatical and arranged for him to study at the American Academy of Rome. Upon getting there, however, Lonn decided instead to hitchhike through the countries surrounding Italy and absorb their architectural heritages — it was the 1960’s after all. He even visited Russia, Turkey, Greece, Israel and Egypt, among many others, as well as spent an extra six months working in the London office of none other than the architect Sir Basil Spence. 

When he returned to Chicago in 1968, he was invited to join the architecture firm of Metz Train Olson & Youngren, where he stayed until 1983. Lonn worked on many projects there, including the award-winning restoration of the Railway Exchange Building on Michigan Avenue. During these years, and throughout his entire career, he gave lectures everywhere — from the Chicago Architecture Foundation to the White House, wrote many articles on the importance of preservation, and taught classes, including at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he also became a Fellow of the museum. His commitment to preserving our architectural heritage through restoration was a cornerstone of his career and included the preservation of many Carnegie libraries around the country. Lonn was a tireless champion for preserving those educational and cultural institutions through every channel available to him and was voted a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects by his peers, in part because of this work.

Lonn formed his own firm in 1983, Frye Gillan Molinaro Architects, and proceeded to build it through many different types of projects, most importantly by working to revitalize American towns through new public libraries, giving them places to gather for many types of experiences beyond just learning from books. He made sure that his welcoming entrances drew everyone in, whether for book clubs, films, concerts, public meetings or art exhibits, and kept them coming back. Lonn also paid particular attention to children’s needs — engaging them on every level, from the colors on the walls to the furniture he designed which they could rearrange. In fact, children’s sections are at the heart of all of his libraries. Overall, during the twenty-five years of its existence, Lonn’s firm produced close to one hundred and forty library designs which were actually realized and built — a very public legacy that will never fade. 

After retiring from architectural work, he took up painting. It is partly the freedom from architecture’s straight lines and controlled curves that intrigued Lonn about this “new” medium. However, those very elements in architecture, as well architecture’s process of designing and then crafting surfaces, has continued into his work as an abstract painter. 

Lonn has always placed a high value on creativity and his paintings are definitely meant to reflect that. Every time he approaches a blank canvas, he strives to create something new, so the process of painting has become an adventure of discovery for him. His interests lie heavily in exploring new color palettes and new materials, plus new processes for applying paint. Of particular focus in Lonn’s work is the texture of a painting’s surface itself, and over the years he has added many unusual materials to his canvases in order to create wildly varied textures — from sand to glass beads to shimmering metallics. Even the thickness with which he applies the paint itself is an exciting part of that process for him.

Lonn is self-taught. He started by copying existing works in order to get a sense of how layers within a painting are actually built, of how edges are defined or blurred, as well as how to balance “the weight” of different elements in a particular piece of art. Once he felt confident with those aspects of the process of “using brushes”, Lonn began to explore creating original works of his own. Over time, he has created paintings that are studies in motion, where every element appears to be rushing somewhere. He has made pieces that are studies in texture, where the surface rises up to draw the eye inward. He has also produced works that are primarily studies in color, where the combination of hues is meant as a challenge to the viewer. Last but not least, he has created paintings that are simply studies in technique, where how the paint is applied and moved around the canvas becomes a vital part of the piece itself. In fact, most of his work can be understood as experiments in motion, texture, color and technique, all merged together.

Because Lonn strives to always create unique pieces of abstract art, his paintings can appear somewhat disparate or without continuity. For example, he would explore a technique which he finds “successful” in a few subsequent paintings, therefore some of his works are very much echoes of others. However, he always consciously tries NOT to repeat his work or develop an easily recognizable style.

In general, abstract painting is a process for Lonn through which he strives to challenge his own creativity, as well as attempts to find new paths and a new vision almost every time he touches a bare canvas. But just as with his architecture, his journey and his vision are always grand.