Education and Architectural Practice in Chicago
Willis attended Chicago public schools and enrolled in the Art Institute of Chicago in 1899, affiliated with the Armour Institute (now Illinois Institute of Technology). In his last year of school Willis began working in the Oak Park, Illinois, studio of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, for whom he served as draftsman for four years, rising to the position of head draftsman. During his years with Wright, he worked with draughtsmen and architects who were important practitioners of Prairie School architecture, including Barry Byrne, William Eugene Drummond, Marion Mahony, Isabel Roberts and Walter Burley Griffin. As Wright's son John Lloyd Wright recorded:
“William Drummond, Francis Barry Byrne, Walter Burley Griffin, Albert McArthur, Marion Mahony, Isabel Roberts and George Willis were the draftsmen. Five men, two women. They wore flowing ties, and smocks suitable to the realm. The men wore their hair like Papa, all except Albert, he didn’t have enough hair... I know that each one of them was then making valuable contributions to the pioneering of the modern American architecture for which my father gets the full glory, headaches and recognition today!
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