Celery Dish ("American Modern" Dinnerware)

Arts of the Americas

1937–59

An ardent promoter of modern design, Russel Wright developed his American Modern line of dinnerware, which included serving pieces such as this celery dish, in 1937. Wright claimed that the organic shapes of the pattern reflected each piece’s function and that muted colors such as cedar green were used in order to “dramatize” the service of food. Although Wright designed the line in 1937, American Modern was not produced until 1939 because of the skepticism of potential manufacturers during the Great Depression. Nonetheless, it has proved to be one of the most popular ceramic patterns ever created.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Russel Wright (Designer)
Title: Celery Dish ("American Modern" Dinnerware)
Place: Steubenville (Object made in:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: c. 1937–1959
Medium: Earthenware and glaze
Inscriptions: Impressed bottom, stamped: "Russel / Wright" [in script] / MFD. BY / STEUBENVILLE / [US]A".
Dimensions: 3.2 × 33.7 × 9.2 cm (1 1/4 × 13 1/4 × 3 5/8 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Beryl C. Michels
Reference Number: 1995.250

Jennifer M. Downs, “ ‘The New Modern Feeling’: A Catalogue of the Collection,” “Shaping the Modern: American Decorative Arts at the Art Institute of Chicago”, special issue, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 27, no. 2 (2001): 59–61, cat. 16 (ill.).

Beryl C. Michels (1923-2015; born Beryl Cohn), Chicago then West Hartford, CT, from c. 1947–52 [according to Committee on American Arts minutes, Oct. 12, 1995; incoming receipt, RX20946, Sept. 26, 1995; copy in curatorial object file]; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1995.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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