CHICAGO—Seven years ago, Richard Wright and his wife, Julie, opened an auction house emphasizing 20th-century design by Charles and Ray Eames and George Nelson. That first year, they recorded a modest $400,000 in sales. In 2006, the trailblazing Wright hammered down a staggering $24,845,707. Now he regularly scores world-record prices such as $192,000 for a Harry Bertoia untitled (“Tree Form”) sculpture this past December. And design enthusiasts still are talking about the $630,000 price at Wright for a marble-topped Isamu Noguchi table in December 2005, a world record for any work of mid-century American design.

Now Wright is exploring new sales categories, such as architecture: In December 2006, he sold Pierre Koenig’s 1958 steel-and-glass “Study House #21,” situated in the Hollywood Hills, for $3.2 million. At that same sale, a 1958 Porsche 356 Speedster went for $132,000. Small wonder then that Wright’s new location on the West Loop is 60,000 square feet—triple the size of his prior premises.

In less than a decade, he has boosted his client roster with collectors in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Sydney and London, proving how this Chicagoan has achieved a pivotal position on the global radar screen.