Wright, Dorothy (basket making)

Dorothy Wright was born in 1910. She went to art school as she wanted to be a stage designer. Before World War II, she worked in the dress trade at St Ives, Cornwall where she wrote and designed for the local drama group. She became interested in crafts, and after four years at the War Office, she joined the London County Council’s panel of Craft Instructors in 1947. She learned basketry under Mr W. Silence at the Royal Institute for the Blind and studied and designed baskets as well as taught basket making.
In addition to writing about basketry, Dorothy Wright also wrote novels, plays and screenplays. She died in 1996.

The Dorothy Wright Collection contains correspondences, research material, reference material, draft copies of her written work, and photographs. She studied almost all the baskets in The Museum of English Rural Life’s collection.

More Information

A full description is available on our online database.

A handlist for the whole collection can be found here.