I spent many wonderful hours Sunday wandering the Art Institute of Chicago, and one of the paintings there that caught my eye was “The Rock,” by Peter Blume.

According to the information card up on the wall to the right of the painting, it was commissioned by the Edgar Kaufman family for their Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home Fallingwater.

I’ve been to Fallingwater. I didn’t much care for it, at least not the inside, but I’d been there. And I wondered … on which wall could such a painting possibly have hung? I could picture the claustrophobic interior of Fallingwater clearly, and so I asked the employees in adjacent rooms (I could find none in the room containing the painting) whether they knew. They did not.

Enter the Internet.

The Art Institute of Chicago site yielded no further information, but over at Lucindaville, I learned:

Edgar Kaufmann, Sr. adored the work and kept it with him in Pittsburgh and Palm Springs until his death, when the painting was sent to the Art Institute of Chicago.

But I also found out about that and another piece by Blume that:

Neither painting ever hung at Fallingwater.

Since stating that a painting was commissioned for a particular home with no further information implies said painting eventually hung there, I think the descriptive card commits a sin of omission. And so, a suggestion for the curators at the Art Institute of Chicago—could you add that while the painting was adored, it never made it to its intended location? On the other hand, if the painting was only intended to celebrate Fallingwater, but never be on display there, could you alter the phrasing to indicate that?

Thanks!

And one more thing while you’re at it—even if you do nothing else, could you please change the name of the building on the placard so it matches the correct usage that appears on your site? It isn’t “Falling Water,” as you have it on the card three times. It’s “Fallingwater.” One word.

You’re welcome.