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| Oscar Edward Cesare caricature illustration of Wilbur and Orville Wright, as published in New York Times, July 6, 1924 within article, "What Europe Thinks of Us". Image courtesy of Delaware Art Museum. A visit soon between Oscar Cesare and Orville Wright will result in a life portrait. |
In 1924, Orville and his sister Katharine returned to Oakwood from their two month stay at Lambert Island that summer, arriving home September 14th. November of that year, Orville welcomed a guest to his Hawthorn Hill home, and to his laboratory at 15 North Broadway in Dayton. Oscar Cesare, illustrator for The New York Times, visited Orville, drew some life sketches, and then wrote of the visit, printed along with Orville's portrait in the February 1, 1925 New York Times issue.
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| Announcement in Dayton Daily News, February 13, 1925. Oscar visited Orville in November of 1924, in lieu of just a few weeks prior to February 13th as printed above. |
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| February 15, 2025 reprint in the Dayton Daily News of the February 1, 1925 New York Times article written by Oscar Cesare. |
A portion of Oscar Cesare's February 1, 1925 article follows:
"Orville Wright's office and laboratory are in a two-story brick building at N. Broadway and Third st., Dayton." [Actually, a single story building with partial basement area below east office section for the boiler, and higher ceiling area for lab section at west end.]
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| Wright Aeronautical Laboratory, 15 North Broadway, Dayton, Ohio. October 28, 1917 press photo, Author's collection. Orville's office (study) was to the right as enter through the front door, and waiting room to the left. |
"In the front is his study; the anteroom across the hall is occupied by a very silent woman, his secretary. In the hall to greet you is an autographed portrait of Count Zeppelin. The walls of the office are hung with photographs of early flights of the Wright brothers. Orville Wright's study also has a few photographs adorning the walls, a roll-top desk, a drafting table and a cabinet, or chest of drawers. The windows look out upon a typical street of a mid-western town, where residences and small shops mingle.
The photographs on the walls furnish an easy and natural peg upon which to hang an introduction, to approach the subject dearest to him- the early days of Wright and his brother. His reserve melts into a subdues enthusiasm, approaching eagerness, but never a touch of boasting creeps in, as he explains the various types of machines. He even seems reluctant in correcting some error you have made as to dates and events in which the brothers figured. Orville Wright is quite unconscious of his greatness and is as unassuming as the day he mended a bicycle long ago in Dayton in the same shop which later sheltered the cradle of aviation. In fact, he shrinks from the public stare and rather makes you feel that you are the person of importance. He is hesitant in speech, almost grave in his movements, though kindliness and quiet humor are blended with keen insight." (1)
Oscar Cesare's completed drawing of Orville is shown below. Orville signed his name, a clear indication that he was pleased with the results, though Cesare felt there was room for improvement.
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| Oscar Cesare 1924 life sketch of Orville Wright, signed by Orville. From Author's collection. (2) |
In addition to the sketch above, Oscar produced a straight on view of Orville which was printed in the August 1925 issue of the magazine, The World's Work, a portrait which was also signed by Orville.
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| Oscar Cesare sketch of Orville Wright as published in The World's Work, August 1925. |
Another visit between Cesare and Wright resulted in a profile view drawing of Orville, dated June of 1927. Orville had just met Charles Lindbergh for the first time June 22, with Lindbergh and others spending the night at Hawthorn Hill, and leaving early the next morning. Cesare visited with Orville that afternoon of June 23. As reported in the Dayton Daily News that day:
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| Dayton Daily News, June 23, 1927. |
"O. E. Cesare, to whom the sketching of political dictators and distinguished men of affairs is an every day affair, came to Dayton Thursday to make a drawing of Orville Wright. The man who had entertained Lindbergh the night before, posed for the distinguished artist in his Broadway laboratory, and the resulting picture and interview will appear in the New York Times magazine soon.
It was the third time in 16 years that Cesare had drawn the father of aviation, and this trip was made from New York because "Orville Wright is of increasing importance" as the full significance of what he did 24 years ago is borne in upon the American people.....
The first time he saw Orville Wright was in 1911 at Belmont Park, Cesare says. There Mr. Wright and his brother, Wilbur, was [sic] making flights in the machine that nobody believed would ever become pratical [sic]. Cesare has a gift for quick, bold lines, but quick as he might be Wilbur Wright was too agile for him. Whenever he arrived at a crucial point in the drawing, Wilbur Wright would discover that he was being sketched and would quickly turn away or go into a hangar. In those days, the Wright brothers were not alive to the value of publicity for their project and they rather resented the persistence of the young newspaper artist who followed them about the field.
Two years ago, en route from San Francisco to New York, Cesare stopped off in Dayton and made a portrait of Orville Wright. Unsatisfied with that work, however, he now returns to make studies from which he will work out a dry point etching of permanent value.
He had already sketched Lindbergh, whose spectacular flight again drew the attention of the world to the man whose idea originally made that flight possible. That was at the dinner given by the Aircraft Manufacturers in New York, when Lindbergh first arrived in this country. Cesare has recently completed a dry etching of the "Spirit of St. Louis" made from sketches executed at the field Lindbergh took off on that eventful morning when he set out for Paris. In the picture the plane is headed straight into the breaking dawn. It is a striking conception, and Cesare has presented a copy of it to Orville Wright.
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| Oscar Cesare "Spirit of St. Louis" |
He has also given Mr. Wright a copy of a photograph of Wilbur Wright, that he unearthed in New York. It was made in France in the days when the Wright brothers were first making exhibition flights.....
Cesare is himself a man of distinguished appearance. Six feet tall, well built, bearing the earmarks of one who has traveled far and wide in many lands, he is instantly noticeable among other men yet without a single mannerism to draw attention to himself.
He will remain in Dayton until Friday, returning at that time returning [sic] to New York to prepare his copy for the Times..." (3)
A portion of what Cesare shared of the visit follows, New York Times, July 17, 1927:
"Not far from the field where the droning planes overhead come and go [ now Wright Patterson Air Force Base] stands a shed, its original coat of paint worn and faded to a dirty gray-green, bleached by sun and storms some twenty-odd years. This is the cradle, the manger of modern aviation. It is the first "hangar". [The Wright hangar no longer exists]
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| Wright hangar at Huffman Prairie, December 10, 1928 (Paramount News press photo). |
Referring to the mysterious secretiveness attributed to the brothers over the flying machine, he [Orville] said he could not see how the legend matched the facts, for in 1904 the machine stood in the field near its shed, all day long, with a curious idle crowd about it waiting to see the mass of linen, wires and struts go into the air, which (as it does today) depended much more on the weather man than on the Wright brothers. When a favorable wind would spring up, a street car would be sure to pass, and they could not start for fear of hitting it, as the flying altitude was very low, especially at the start.
When all kinds of sensational stories about the inventors were scattered through the press they grew tired of the false reports and ridicule. They withdrew from interviewers. But one among those interviewers won the brother's confidence. A man with a "fine head", a man who evidently had been "something else" at one time, appeared. He reported their efforts truthfully and grasped their problem. This itinerant reporter came to the field every day to hear of their successes or failures and became the trusted chronicler of these early flights; he shared the Wright's faith. (4)
When that famous young flier, Lindbergh, was the guest of Orville Wright [June 22, 1927], flowers were showered upon both. Next morning Orville got into his car and drove to the hospital where the one-time reporter now lies ill and shared his flowers with the man who believed in him."
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| Oscar Cesare Orville Wright drawing published in The World's Work, September 1928. |
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| Image dated June, 1927, Dayton. |
Oscar Cesare visited Orville Wright once again on October 28, 1938 to again produce a number of sketches of Orville, and to write of the experience, printed in the New York Times on December 11, 1938.
Oscar Cesare, December 11, 1938
"Today, Orville Wright, who is 67 years old, lives quietly in Dayton, working and meditating in his office, or reading in his white house on a suburban hill. It would probably surprise most of those to whom the name of Wright is synonymous with flying to know that Orville spends much money and time in helping other people. He spends more time in charity than on aviation. He has not flown in an airplane for years. He prefers to do as much good as he can for others. The porter in a hotel in Dayton was asked it he knew Mr. Wright.
"Yes," he said, "he sent me to school".
There is no monument to the Wrights in Dayton, [The Wright Memorial in Dayton was dedicated in 1940] although an air field which encloses the farm land they used for their early experiments is named for them; but there are lots of young people in Dayton who are grateful to Orville. It is this retiring, kindly tendency of the man which makes it so difficult to talk about aviation.
But sometimes Orville Wright can be persuaded to talk about the early days of flying......Mr. Wright likes to recall the afternoons on flying fields when the planes were silhouetted against the golden sky, when the wind had died down and the throb of the motors cold be heard from the slow, circling planes overhead, with perhaps a handful of spectators, most of them hoping that a record would be made in flying on that day. They were thrilling days for the Wright brothers.
When Mr. Wright does talk of these things it is usually in his office in a one-story building on North Broadway, not far from where the first workshop stood. That workshop, by the way, has been removed by Henry Ford to Greenfield Village, Dearborn, Mich., and stands beside [near but not beside] Edison's first laboratory. Mr. Wright talks slowly and deliberately, sometimes pausing a few moments as if trying to recall some memory.....
A photograph of Wilbur Wright, which Orville thinks is the best likeness of him, is in the office. The men were very close to each other, and it is evident that Wilbur is often in his brother's thoughts.....
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| Wilbur Wright, 1908. Image courtesy of Special Collections and Archives, Wright State Libraries, ms1_23_1_8. Photo imperfections corrected by Author. |
In another room is Mr. Wright's roll-top desk, and in one corner is a drawing board with what looks like a sketch of a wing section on it. The desk of Mabel Beck, his secretary, is there also. Mr Wright's correspondence is large, and it takes up a good part of his working day, which lasts from 8:30 A.M to 6 P.M., except for an hour at lunch....
When his day's work at the office is done, and much of it has to do with helping other people, he gets into his car and drives home to his white house on the hill. It is a comfortable, even artistically furnished house, and on the walls are many pictures, some of them of famous men who have made aviation history. There is one picture of a Virginia countryside, with the graceful Wright biplane of the early days flying a few hundred feet high in an army test. In the foreground is a patch of red Virginia earth. Mr. Wright laughs when he looks at it.
"It may not be the best painting in the world, but I remember that patch of dirt," he says, "I fell on it."
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| Orville Wright's library reading room, Hawthorn Hill, with close-up of painting. Photo by Author. |
Orville Wright spends the Summers at Georgian Bay, Canada. He has remodeled an old house, which he thought when he first saw it was one of the ugliest houses in the world; now he says it has a rather Chinese pagoda effect.
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| Lambert Island home on left as it appeared in 1918, and remodeled home on right. Remodeling began in August of 1932. Photos courtesy of Wright State University Libraries Core Scholar. (6) |
The years have dealt kindly with Orville Wright, although he still suffers from the effects of the first airplane accident- a crash that cost the life of his companion, Lieutenant Selfridge, at Fort Myer, Va., in 1908. He is the picture of health. Though his curly hair has grayed, his blue eyes are keen, with the same old gleam of kindness. He has not changed since the writer last saw him, in 1927.
He is an inveterate reader. Contemporary literature attracts him, but he likes best the delve into books on science, sociology and what is going on in the world today. He is a keen student of human affairs, although he keeps his opinions to himself. His natural reserve cannot altogether suppress his sense of the ridiculous and his quizzical humor. And withal he is a kindly, lovable man, never bitter, even when speaking of some of the early disappointments which he and his brother faced.
Where Orville Wright found the philosopher's stone he has never revealed but he has it hidden somewhere about him." (7)
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| Initial life sketch of Orville Wright by Oscar Cesare, October 28, 1938. From Author's collection. |
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| Orville Wright sketch transition by Oscar Cesare, 1938. From Author's collection. |
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| Finished 1938 sketch of Orville Wright by Oscar Cesare, 1938. Currently within The National Portrait Gallery, image courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. |
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| Orville Wright 1938 sketch by Oscar Cesare. From Author's collection. |
Oscar Cesare died July 25, 1948 at the age of 63, six months after the passing of Orville Wright.
Copyright 2026-Getting the Story Wright
Related Posts:
15 North Broadway- The Wright Aeronautical Laboratory
Notes-
1. Dayton Daily News Sunday Magazine Section, February 15, 1925, "With Orville Wright In His Workshop", by Oscar Cesare. Originally printed in The New York Times.
2. The sketch is stamped Feb 1, 1925 at bottom edge, which is crossed out, and written above that date is Nov, 1924, which I take as the actual time of the visit between Cesare and Wright. Pleased to own this sketch, and personally, I find it a better drawing of Orville than the ones Cesare published in August of 1925 (straight-on) and September of 1928 (profile).
3. Dayton Daily News, June 23, 1927, "Wright Poses for Sketch by Noted Artist".
4. I have not been able to determine the identity of this man Orville visited in the Hospital. If more information becomes available, I'll update this post. I'm assuming the reporter would not have had access to Huffman Prairie in 1904, and if in 1905, not until late in the season, and cameras would not have been allowed. Perhaps the reporter's activity was in 1910 and 1911.
5. From The Dayton Herald, December 17, 1946.
6. Photos are from Special Collections and Archives, Wright State University Libraries. Remodeled home ms1_26_3_186 description "A view of Orville Wright's summer home, 1916-1938." Actual date of photo would be after late 1932, likely 1933 or 1934.
7. The New York Times Magazine, December 11, 1938, "Orville Wright Looks Backward", by Oscar Cesare.
