Wright Chat

I'm interested on your thoughts about the appropriate dinnerware and flatware to use in a USONIAN home.

Maybe something designed by another Wright, namely Russel, might work?

I have read somewhere the Mr. Wright used/suggested dinnerware from Heath Ceramics in Sausalito, CA in the last decade of his life.

Town and Country dinnerware by Eva Zeisel has been reissued with some minor changes by Crate and Barrel. The set is a an off white color and ovoid shaped. The cups and saucers have a distinct period quality- so different than the informality of mugs that were beginning to gain popularity. That's what we used in an Erdman Wright-like house. Palli Davis Holubar

Somewhere I read that they used Fiestaware at Taliesin West.

The Gift shops at the various Wright sites are selling table wares. You might find something at one of them.

G.N.

I vote for Russel Wright "Iroquois" or Ben Seibel's "Modern Stoneware". Both are simple and undecorated yet modern in feel.

For me, some of this depends on the age of the Usonian. In our case, I intend on using the original set of Russel Wright American Modern in sea foam green which I inherited from my mom, which has also now been reissued by Bauer:

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/la/news ... ued-082470

If it were a later house (late fifties), I would probably go the route of Heath, or earlier, (thirties) I would consider something more art deco like the very early Fiestaware from 1936 or Bauer pottery.

All of the suggestions posted here would work well, though I would be careful with what is sold in the Wright gift shops, those souvenir mugs with the Wright signature, for example...

When we stayed at the Palmer House, the archival material (can't remember if in a folder or a book) said that FLW had recommended Spode India Tree for the house. Which greatly interested me, as I have a set of this, inherited from an aunt! It would pick up the color of the floors beautifully, but is perhaps more formal than one might expect.

Here's a link to an image: http://www.giftcollector.com/ProductLin ... 352.pp.jpg


This is quite expensive, though, and the Palmer House is using the gray American Modern Russell Wright to good effect.

Sorry -- I can't see Wright suggesting (to anyone) purchase of that traditional china pattern -- valuable and cherished though it may be. The
only patterned ware he might have recommended would be Japanese -- or perhaps designs from his own hand. (These would likely not include concoctions
created after his death. . .)

(On the other hand, he would surely not have insisted that such a family treasure be discarded -- merely put out of his sight !)

The Bergers (Robert and Gloria) both reported to John Sergeant (p 143) that they sold the family Spode to buy concrete for their self-built post-war Usonian.

SDR

While not relating to Usonians, this was my mother's and grandmother's Spode pattern, laid out on the dinning table at Fallingwater:

http://images.replacements.com/images/i ... 0001T2.jpg

It's odd how important china was in the past. Cherished and rarely used.

Man is the oddest of animals: creating utilitarian objects which, when made with special care and of sufficient rarity and costliness, become too good to use ! Other examples: The front door, and the "front room". . .

This was the sort of thinking which FLLW worked (and lived) to refute -- didn't he ?

SDR

Johnson Brothers Blue Willow is a fave of mine, and looks beautiful and appropriate in my FLLW Henredon Dining Room Table for everyday. Especially since the table sits below a 4 panel Japanese screen.

From Grant Hildebrand's book on the Palmer House, page 66:

For dining china Wright suggested Spode in the "India Tree" pattern which Mary bought and still uses for special occasions.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&s ... a=N&tab=wi

If anyone wondered what that pattern looks like this is the link.