Photo by Michael J. GallegosTribune

Tribune

Tania Bobrick (right) of Wright's Indian Art greets loyal customer Arla Sussman, who stopped by the store at 1100 San Mateo Blvd. N.E. recently to do a little shopping. Wright's is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. Bobrick, who owns the store with her husband, Wayne, says the secret to Wright's success is that customers trust the store to carry the best in authentic American Indian art.

Photo by Michael J. GallegosTribune

Tribune

Wayne Bobrick moved to Albuquerque from Iowa in 1957 to attend the University of New Mexico. His many years at Wright's have made him an authority on Indian art from the Southwest and other regions. His advice is to buy art because you love it, not because it might be a good investment.

Tribune

This post card shows Wright's as it looked when it occupied a spectacular Pueblo-style building at Fourth Street and Gold Avenue Southwest in Downtown. The landmark structure was demolished in 1958, but Wright's, which has operated at seven Albuquerque locations, is still in business.

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An aura of age enfolds Wright's Indian Art like a fine Navajo blanket. It rests light but unmistakably on the shoulders of those who enter.

It's an odd sensation because, on the surface, the store in the Courtyard at 1100 San Mateo Blvd. N.E. appears every bit the sleek, modern, well-organized, buffed and polished purveyor of American Indian pottery, jewelry, paintings and sculpture.

Perhaps it is the art itself — much of it contemporary in design but all of it rooted in ancient traditions and techniques — that accounts for the mantle of history draped here.

The brilliantly colored glass vessels of Isleta Pueblo artist Tony Jojola are cutting-edge 21st century but linked in legacy with the famous black pottery of Maria Martinez of San Ildefonso Pueblo.

Some of Navajo artist Joe Ben Jr.'s sand paintings are almost abstract in appearance, but Ben's skill and knowledge can be traced to his father and grandfather, both Navajo medicine men.

"We've got a lot of pride and tradition here," said Wayne Bobrick, who, with his wife, Tania, owns Wright's. "What is new today is tradition tomorrow."

So maybe it's the art that accounts for the aura of years.

Or maybe it's the fact that Wright's itself is a century old.

Wright place, Wright time

In about 1900, Charles Wright, then 18, rode horseback from Kansas to Mexico looking for some luck and a way to make a living.

He didn't find either south of the border, so he retraced his tracks as far as Albuquerque.

Wright learned to appreciate Indian art while working for Fred Harvey in the Indian Room of Albuquerque's late, lamented and thoroughly demolished Alvarado Hotel.

Later, Wright worked for Harvey at the gift shop of El Tovar at the Grand Canyon and, for a time, he operated his own trading post at Ca¤oncito.

But in 1907, he moved back to Albuquerque with his wife and kids and opened Wright's Trading Post and Curios at Third Street and Gold Avenue Southwest. His motto was: "If it came from Wright's, you bought it right."

That was the start of the business that continues to this day at the Courtyard on San Mateo. It is Albuquerque's oldest trading post.

"The idea of reaching 100 years is awesome," Bobrick said. "Outside of French Mortuary, I don't know of too many Albuquerque businesses that are 100."

Wright's went through a lot of skins from founding to now, but its most colorful incarnation was certainly at its second location, Fourth and Gold Southwest.

There, about 10 years after he opened at his original location, Wright had a Pueblo-style trading post built.

It was something of a legend in its time.

A promotional folder from the 1920s described the interior as long, low rooms built of adobe, finished with pine slabs from the Zuni Mountains and boasting rafters made from huge pine trees.

According to the folder, a 10-foot high adobe fireplace was ornamented with odd brass candlesticks, Indian pottery, baskets, matchlock guns, war clubs, bows and arrows.

Wright, who was apparently quite the showman, is said to have lighted fires in Indian pots on top of the building at night and to have employed a Navajo medicine man who cured himself in the trading post's sweathouse for the benefit of tourists.

Wright died in 1937, but his widow continued the business.

She was the boss in 1956 when Tania Bobrick's parents, Sam and Marguerite Chernoff, walked into Wright's. The Chernoffs had owned the Dreyfuss Store, a clothing business that fell victim to redevelopment on Albuquerque's First Street. They were looking for another opportunity. They bought Wright's.

"My mother fell in love with everything in the store," Tania Bobrick said. "My father didn't know anything about Indian jewelry, but he bought the store because my mother loved it."

'Dark and full of stuff'

In its 100 years, Wright's has been in seven locations but in only two families — Wright and Chernoff.

Sam Chernoff was a Russian who had emigrated to Mexico. Marguerite Chernoff was the daughter of the French consul to Mexico. Family history has them meeting at a party.

They operated a department store in Chihuahua, Mexico, before Sam moved to Albuquerque in 1948. Marguerite followed with the family in 1949.

Tania, now 67, was about 10 when she came to Albuquerque. She didn't speak a word of English then.

She was in high school when her parents bought Wright's. The old trading post was not the kind of place that would impress a teenage girl.

"I remember that it was dark and full of stuff and that the wood plank floors were almost impossible to clean," Tania said recently during an interview at Wright's present location.

The Chernoffs owned the business but not the Pueblo-style building. In 1958 it was demolished in the name of progress, just as other Albuquerque landmark buildings — the Franciscan Hotel and the Alvarado — would be in later years.

"Albuquerque lost its soul," said Tania, who wishes now that the dark, old building full of stuff had been preserved. "It was a tragedy. There was a lot of history there."

Wright's, the business, survived, however, and thrived under Sam Chernoff's leadership.

"My dad was a great businessman," Tania said. "He was a self-made man. Whatever he did, he went for the best. He had a wonderful eye."

The store moved over the years to three locations on Central Avenue. After Sam died in 1981, Marguerite Chernoff operated the store with son-in-law Wayne.

Then, in 1988, Wright's left its location at 314 Central Ave. S.W. and moved out of Downtown where it had been born.

Reaching the heights

After leaving Downtown, Wright's settled first at Park Square, 6600 Indian School Road N.E., where it remained until moving to its present location in 1998.

Wayne Bobrick, 68, said that during the move to Park Square, Wright's weeded souvenir pieces out of its inventory and went strictly to quality Indian art.

"Our customers are people who like and appreciate good Indian art," Tania said. "They trust us."

Wayne said everything at Wright's is made by hand.

"Nothing here is mass produced," he said. "You won't see a few good pieces mixed in with a lot of tourist pieces."

Wayne Bobrick moved to Albuquerque from Council Bluffs, Iowa, in 1957 to attend the University of New Mexico. He met Tania there. He married her but also ended up wedded to Wright's.

The Bobricks, working with a staff of four, buy directly from Indian artists who bring their work into the store.

"You don't buy Indian art for an investment," said Wayne, who was wearing a silver, turquoise and coral shadow-box bolo created by Navajo-Apache artist Gibson Nez. "You buy it because you like it and are going to enjoy it. That's the way we buy for the store — like we were buying it for ourselves."

He excused himself and moved across the store to assist some customers. Tania, who herself came late into her family's business after a career as a Spanish teacher with Albuquerque Public Schools, watched her husband with the customers.

"He has such a passion for Indian art, and his knowledge is encyclopedic," she said. "Not bad for a boy from Iowa.

"He'll tell a customer, 'This is good for you,' and that's it."

After 100 years, seven locations and two families, the Bobricks still believe, "If it came from Wright's, you bought it right."