Russel Wright: American Designer

During the 1940s and 50s Russel Wright's name literally became a household word. It was estimated that over 125 million pieces of his "stove to table" ware, plastic dishes, and "Spun Aluminum" kitchenware were in use in American homes. His "American Modern" lines of furniture and dinnerware were all highly popular in their day, but now they are becoming rare. Collectors and dealers snap up whatever Wright accessories they can, and when Andy Warhol, one of the most avid Wright collectors was asked how he came to be a Wright fan he remarked, "who's good after him?"

This survey of his work establishes Wright as the designer who was most responsible for the shift in taste that made domestic products with a "modern look" popular in the late 1930s. It documents a career of extraordinary range, from the "Blonde" line of furniture commissioned by Nordiska to the juke boxes Wright designed for Wurlitzer, from vinyl seat covers that looked like vinyl rather than fake leather to an aluminum evening wrap. The fifty photographs in the book-ten in color-illustrate his most important work: fabrics, lamps, glass, china, flatware, desks, pianos, radios, ceramics, glassware, chairs, and machinery.

Social historian and critic Russell Lynes remembers Wright as "the answer for those of us who were brought up to accept the Bauhaus doctrine as announcing the design wave of the present and hope of the future, but who could not afford to buy the expensive imports of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe and Marcel Breuer.. . . Our was, I assure you, no small clique. We were part of the mass market for which Wright designed and proud of it."