Twentieth century industrial designer Russel Wright was not a graduate of Princeton University. Why, then, was this non-alumnus awarded Princeton’s Outstanding Achievement Award and asked to be it’s chief speaker at the class of 1926’s 50th reunion celebration in 1976? The answer lies in observance of Wright’s considerable contribution to affordable design principles in a career that spanned more than 50 years.
Though not a Princeton graduate, Wright attended the university for several years in half-hearted pursuit of a law degree. His family, whose history was rooted in law, felt strongly about Russel’s future as a lawyer and despaired at his imminent failure to complete law school. Princeton’s own law faculty ironically quelled the Wright family’s fears about Russel’s academic future. Two years into his stay at Princeton it was obvious, even to his law instructors, that Russel’s talents and determination to succeed would situate him well amongst those in the world of art. So, in a letter to Russel’s worried father, Princeton’s Dean assured the Wrights that his faculty had faith that their son could make his living respectably, even if not working in the field of law.
With the blessing of his Princeton pedagogues, Wright’s artistic talents were legitimized to his family and he was truly free to begin his career. Russel worked designing theater sets for several years, but desired artistic freedom, and moved on quickly. With more elbowroom, Russel began integrating his social conscience into his designs, saying that, “The best thing in life should be free, or sell for a reasonable price”. In 1927, he met Mary Small Einstein, a wealthy woman with many social and financial contacts. Russel and Mary wed shortly thereafter, the union of Mary’s marketing talents and Russel’s artistic skills were established, setting the stage for them to truly expand his clientele and meet his goal of reasonable pricing.
Initially, Mary went door-to-door in Manhattan, presenting boutiques with Russel’s unique, and sometimes odd, caricature masks and metal giftware. Eventually, however, Mary convinced Russel to concentrate on producing spun aluminum serving pieces, a unique use of industrial metal that spotlighted Russel’s forward-thinking emphasis on informal living. Though his work was artistic, it was not geared toward the wealthy, and its wide-scale production made it available to middle-class America.
In the 1930s, despite the onset of the Depression, Wright remained successful as sales for his affordable aluminum picked up, with requests coming in from all over the United States. He began producing and expanded form serving pieces to full sets of dinnerware. With this expansion came Russel’s most popular line-the one, which made his name a household label-American Modern. The American Modern line began with furniture, which was rooted in modernized American Colonial form, and continued with fabrics, household accessories, and his widely popular American Modern dinnerware. The boldly colored, hand-cast-and-glazed American Modern dinnerware was in production for 20 years and became the best-selling dinnerware in American history.
With the end of World War II, Wright sought active change in the way American households were organized by guiding young homemakers to less formal and more efficient lifestyles. Wright said that he “believe[d] with religious intensity that good design is for everyone,” and this principle extended to the design of housekeeping. In an attempt to revamp established, but outdated, household practices Russel and Mary published A Guide to Easier Living in 1951. Called the “Bible of housework,” it included charts, diagrams, and lists as well as such advice on organizing everything from social occasions to spice racks and groceries. Extraordinarily popular throughout the 1950s, it was printed three times.
Mary Wright died in 1952, leaving Russel alone both in business and in raising their young daughter, Annie. Russel continued to design throughout the 1950s and 1960s, but his American Modern line of the 1930s remained his most popular. In the mid 1950s Wright began working with the U.S. State Department’s International Cooperation Administration and he traveled to Southeast Asia, Japan and Korea to help their industries develop a plan for successful integration of their products into the American economy.
Upon his return to the U.S., Wright focused his newly refreshed design attentions on a house near the Hudson River in New York. Located on a piece of land he affectionately named “Manitoga,” the eleven-level home, dubbed “Dragon Rock” was designed by David Leavitt. “Dragon Rock” was integrated into its surroundings with Japanese open-frame construction and it became Russel’s experimental playground for domestic design. He designed specific interior treatments to compliment each season, developing innovative lighting and flooring methods as well. Outdoors, he worked extensively at his newest form of design- reshaping the land’s abandoned granite quarries, reclaiming indigenous plant material, rerouting a stream to form a waterfall, and meticulously planning nature trails throughout the property. As a result of his extensive work on “Manitoga”, and its unique combination of interior and landscape design, it has been named a National Historic Landmark, and is regarded by his scholars as Wright’s most vital artistic contribution,
Wright passed away in 1976, the same year Princeton awarded him their Outstanding Achievement Award. In more than 50 years since leaving Princeton, Wright established himself as an artist and industrial, interior and landscape designer- and, perhaps most importantly, reshaped the availability of fine design to all Americans by industrializing his artwork.
If you are interested in a closer look at Russel Wright’s work, the exhibit “Russel Wright: Living with Good Design” will be on display at The Columbus Museum of Art and Design located in the Commons Centre through January 7, 2007. Museum hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 to 5:00, closed Sunday, Monday and all Major Holidays.
Written by Angela Person
Appeared in the Oct-Dec Into Art, Fine arts and Crafts Magazine
