Wright Russel
Wright Russel
Encouraged by his father, Russel Wright started as a law student at Princeton University. After his first year he spend the summer in the art colony in Woodstock N.Y. and left Princeton after having been offered a job at Norman Bell Geddes’s studio as an assistant on the
theatre sets for ‘the Miracle’. In Woodstock he also met his future wife, aesthetic and commercial guide, Mary Small Einstein. He started producing masks and cast animal figures for Mrs. Rena Rosenthal’s trend setting store in New York. After President Hoover’s refusal to
participate in the 1925 ‘Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels’ in Paris. He joined a group of American designers to visit the exhibition. Upon his return he designed radios for Wurlitzer and the first jukebox. Later he turned to furniture design for
Haywood-Wakesfield and a collection of solid bleached maple furniture for Conant Ball (1935). Aluminum spun tableware with wooden handles was one of the other successful ventures coming out of his workshop on 53th street in N.Y.. In 1938 he started the design and mould making of a ceramic tableware collection. In spite Mary’s and his own efforts they could not find a manufacturer until in association with Irving Richards
they convinced the authorities to re-open a bankrupt factory ‘Steubenville Pottery’ in Steubenville near East Liverpool Ohio. In 1940 the started to produce his ‘American Modern’ dinnerware and did so until 1961. The very sculptural but simple organic forms were the result of a tradition of restraint that was part of his Quaker upbringing and his education as a sculptor. The line was extremely successful and earned the Wrights over 1 million in royalties. In an atempt to distance american functionalism from european he launched in 1940 a project called ‘the American Way’. About a hundred prominent industrial designers
participated in a combined effort of 72 manufacturers and 22 major department stores to bring to the public well designed furniture and accessories. In spite of Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s presence at the launch in the N.Y. Macy’s store, the upcoming wartime made it a failure. In 1944 he was one of the 14 founding members of SID (society of Industrial Designers) soon to become ASID which by merger with IDI and IDEA became the IDSA. He designed the first melamine tableware in 1949. It was produced by American Cyanamid, under the name Meladur, but never reached
beyond the use in restaurants. When the Northern Industrial Moulding Company in Boston produced his residential melamine dinnerware in 1953, it was widely accepted to the point where it almost became a generic
product, produced by a multitude of manufacturers. The 1951 yearbook of the SID shows his first attempt to combine ceramics and glass in the same table setting. The pieces were produced by Paden City Glass – and
the Paden City Pottery Company. After Mary’s death he was not only deprived from his major inspiration but became depressed and retired to build his new home ‘Dragon Rock’ in Garrison N.Y.. With the Austrian
born american Eva Zeisel and the prolific but less successful Ben Seibel, Russell is without any doubt one, if not the most important american ceramic designer of the XXth century.