Book Review — Russel and Mary Wright: Dragon Rock at Manitoga

Formal art books are written in a style all their own, very different than other nonfiction. Jennifer Golub’s new release Russel and Mary Wright: Dragon Rock at Manitoga is a formidable work, carefully researched from personal interviews with industrial designers Russel and Mary Wright’s family, friends and others, as well as from extensive archives. Golub writes about the lives of the Wrights, their work, what they created and how they were able to make entirely new designs, colors and materials that were artistic and financial successes.

The book includes hundreds of photos of Russel and Mary Wright’s designs and, of course, Dragon Rock at Manitoga, the remarkable home and studio they built in the 1950s on the site of an abandoned quarry in upstate New York. The house, built to be an artistic haven, blends in with the forested woodlands of the Hudson Valley estate and is an icon of midcentury architecture. Manitoga is now the Russel Wright Design Center and a National Historic Landmark.

Russel and Mary Wright: Dragon Rock at Manitoga by Jennifer Golub (Princeton Architectural Press, 208 pages, $60).

View of the kitchen and dining area in Dragon Rock. The table is set with dishes and silverware designed by Russel Wright. You can see the use of natural material in the construction of the walls and floors.  Photo: Jennifer Golub

American Modern water pitchers in various colors, made by Steubenville Pottery Co., Ohio, 1939–1956.  Photo: Wright