March 2009 – October 2009
Russel Wright (1904–1976), a pioneer in the field of home furnishings and accessories, was one of the most successful American industrial designers from the 1930s through the early 1960s. Born in Lebanon, Ohio, to a prominent family, he attended Princeton University briefly before moving to New York City to establish a career in theater arts. His early career as a theater stage designer in the 1920s, in addition to his marriage to Mary Small Einstein—who encouraged Wright to design household items—paved the way for his career in industrial design.
Following the Great Depression and World War II, the United States surfaced as one of the most powerful and affluent nations in the world. Many Americans purchased homes for the first time in newly developed suburbs. In the postwar suburbs, people often dined in the family room in front of the television, and cocktail parties and buffets supplanted formal dinners. Industrial designers emerged to serve this burgeoning consumer market by creating affordable, stylish, mass-produced objects for the home.
In order to reach the broadest audience possible, Russel Wright designed dinnerware, furniture, glassware, and other accessories that were beautiful, easy to use, and reasonably priced. Wright's extremely popular wares were sought after by households across the country. For nearly thirty years, Wright influenced and often established middle-class America's taste in home décor. In addition to aggressively mass-marketing all of his merchandise, he applied his signature to many of his products and all of his advertisements. By doing so, he created one of the first designer brand names. Wright not only created stylish home furnishings, he created a new American lifestyle.
Published in 1950, Mary and Russel Wright's best-selling Guide to Easier Living, served as a handbook for postwar, suburban, household management—from home design and decoration, to entertainment, and domestic efficiency—the Wrights hoped to make "less work and more play for everyone concerned." The couple truly believed that postwar living should be easy, elegant, economical, and informal, and that Wright's products provided the means to achieve this way of life.
Wright is best known for American Modern, one of the best-selling dinnerware lines ever produced. Its rimless dinner plates, curvilinear forms, and subdued colors were unlike anything else available when they first appeared on store shelves in the late 1930s. Other high-grossing products included Wright's Casual China, Residential plastic dinnerware, and American Modern furniture, all of which are featured in this exhibition. Wright at Home: Modern Lifestyle Design 1930–1965 explores how Wright transformed the way Americans lived their daily, domestic lives with his fashionable, egalitarian wares and guidelines for "easier living."
Photography is not permitted.
©2009 by San Francisco Airport Commission. All rights reserved
This exhibit is beyond the screener checkpoint, where only ticketed passengers are allowed.