The theater at the Hillside School building, redesigned by Frank Lloyd Wright after a fire in 1952, has housed a unique curtain for half a century. The curtain was designed by Wright and manufactured by apprentices in the Taliesin Fellowship, using felt, thread, and yarn on a cotton muslin background. Wright's apprentices gave the completed curtain to Wright in 1957 as a birthday present.

The curtain abstractly represents the Taliesin estate and home, with the Wisconsin River represented in black, the hill upon which Taliesin sits represented as a green diagonal, and his home perched off the hill with smoke rising from one of its chimneys. The rest of the curtain shows fields, barns, and even Wright's red "signature square" in the lower right hand corner.

Time had taken its toll on the curtain after it had graced the theater's stage. In particular, the wool, felt blocks worked against the cotton background. This "protein against cellulose" (in the words of the conservator), in the varying climatic conditions of the theater, resulted in the cotton moving in one direction, and the felt moving in another.

Textile Conservation Services, an Indianapolis company with over 20 years of experience in the field, sent a treatment proposal to the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation regarding the repair and cleaning of the curtain. Funds were secured by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation in late 2006 and the curtain was removed and brought to Indianapolis following the end of the Taliesin tour season.

The director of Textile Conservation Services cleaned the curtain and reblocked the felt. The felt pieces had shrunk and buckled over time, so they were stretched back into shape using 10,000 pushpins. The resulting work reestablished the grid that Wright had intended in his design. Textile Conservation Services also repaired the bordering sash along the bottom of the curtain, which had begun to rip and drag along the floor.

And, while the curtain was cleaned, none of Wright's individual touches were removed. The coffee that he ordered to be applied to the curtain (in order to darken the cotton background) has been retained, as well as the penciled notes on the background, indicating where certain colors were planned.

The curtain was returned in early May with assistance from Taliesin® Preservation, Inc. staff. In addition to the work by Textile Conservation Services, a consultant with Battbro Co. Theatrical Services (also from Indianapolis) who gave his expertise on properly removing, then restaging, the curtain. In addition to this crucial assistance, the theatrical staging expert was able to instruct TPI on how to repair a pulley system so that the curtain can be opened and closed with minimal touching of the fabric; and he constructed protective sleeves for the curtain during the off-season.

Photographs of the curtain upon its return are below.