This glittering image of the late actress Elizabeth Taylor, rendered by artist Vik Muniz in the diamonds she loved, is now hanging in the Princeton University Art Museum, thanks to a bequest from C. Bagley Wright Jr. ’46.
In addition to the Muniz print, Wright, who died in 2011, bequeathed a bronze by Anthony Caro, Odalisque with Anklet, and provided $1 million to the museum.
His will was an extension of the support he gave to Princeton during his lifetime. A fund he created in 2006, the Virginia and Bagley Wright, Class of 1946, Program Fund for Modern and Contemporary Art, underwrote the museum’s current exhibition, Root & Branch, which explores images of trees across the ages.
The president of Bagley Wright Investments of Seattle, Wright was involved in civic endeav- ors that included helping found the Seattle Repertory Theater and serving as acting director of the Seattle Art Museum. He may be best remembered as the developer behind the city’s landmark Space Needle.
Wright made his mark architecturally on the Princeton campus as well. During the Anniversary Campaign for Princeton, he donated $4 million to create a new Gothic archway that extends the east-west pathway through campus from the Frist Campus Center to the Graduate College. The gift also supported renovations to Patton Hall and named Bagley Wright ’46 Hall, the dormitory north of Patton.
