"This is my favorite vista," says auctioneer extraordinaire Richard Wright, peering out over the shipping and receiving bay of his namesake company's 60,000-square-foot facility on the fringe of Chicago's West Loop. Before him is a staggering jumble of the world's finest examples of 20th-century design, stacked on shelves by the hundreds—sultry walnut chairs by Vladimir Kagan, monolithic George Nakashima tables, delicate wire sculptures created by Harry Bertoia, and gnarled metal cabinets by Paul Evans. Nearby are the more polished parts of the Wright operation, all carved out of a former printing factory: the buffed concrete floors of the double-height, skylit showroom; the art-filled offices; and the loft where he fields telephone bids from New York to Tokyo.
Wright founded his auction house with his wife, Julie Thoma Wright, in 2000. Together, they ignited modern design as a powerhouse market and left stalwarts like Sotheby's and Christie's playing copycat. I've always had this idea that our company is about creativity," says the 42-year-old Wright, shaggy mane tucked neatly behind his ears and lean frame clad in a Prada suit. "We've tried not to follow anyone in the way we do things." Wright catalogs—glorious, glossy tomes of design porn encompassing everything from dining tables to textiles to art books—were one of the first things to get noticed. The lavish publications show few qualms about splashing immaculate photos across two-page spreads, hitting glossy paper with bold colors and muscular fonts, and throwing in extreme close-ups that communicate the silky finish of polished steel or the grainy texture of stoneware. "With the catalogs, we changed the industry," says Wright. "We recognized that if you're going to sell design, it should be in a well-designed book."
"They put 20th-century design out there as a focus for the other auction houses," says Paul Johnson, owner of Phurniture, a design gallery in New York. "They have access to many dealers who before would only sell to other dealers. It helps them get their hands on merchandise that the other houses don't get."
The payoff has been substantial. While the first Wright auction brought in a pleasant $400,000, the house's best sales—including its Important 20th Century Design series—can now top $7 million. Wright established himself as an international player along the way, facilitating sales between buyers and sellers from as far away as Hong Kong, Australia, and the U.K. In 2005, he set a record price for mid-century American design when he sold a coffee table by Isamu Noguchi for $630,000. (In addition to periodic auctions, Wright also sells direct from his showroom and Web site, wright20.com.)
