Russel Wright and Handicraft Transnational Collecting Practices

Abstract

This essay surveys the understudied collecting practices of Russel Wright (1903–1976) in and in relation to Southeast Asia during the mid twentieth century, with emphasis on Vietnam. On behalf of the American State Department, from November 1955 to February 1956 Wright travelled throughout Taiwan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Hong Kong to assess the region's potential to produce handicraft for export to the United States for domestic consumption. Wright toured sites of handicraft production and collected examples that upon his return to the States he displayed in commercial contexts and about which he published an essay in Interiors. Wright promoted the purchase of Southeast Asian handicraft items and championed an aesthetic that rendered them especially suitable for middle class American homes. Through Russel Wright Associates, in Southeast Asia he established centers to foster the production of handicraft and display and sell the results. Wright's collecting practices relating to Southeast Asia broaden the basis on which traditionally we have valued Wright's significance for American culture while they also alert us to transnational dimensions of historical relationships of American diplomacy and culture.

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