EYE-LIKEY

MODERN MASTERS

Husband & Wife power couple

Charles & Ray Eames

Charles Eames (1907-78) and Ray Eames (1912-88) gave shape to America's twentieth century. Their lives and work represented the nation's defining movements: the West Coast's coming-of-age, the economy's shift from making goods to producing information, and the global expansion of American culture. The Eameses embraced the era's visionary concept of modern design as an agent of social change, elevating it to a national agenda. Their evolution from furniture designers to cultural ambassadors demonstrated their boundless talents and the overlap of their interests with those of their country. Not only did CHARLES & RAY design some of the most important examples of 20th century furniture, they also applied their talents to devising ingenious children's toys, puzzles, films, exhibitions and such iconic mid-20th century Los Angeles buildings as the Eames House and Entenza House in Pacific Palisades. In a rare era of shared objectives, the Eameses partnered with the federal government and the country's top businesses to lead the charge to modernize postwar America.

Eames working his solor powered design display

Textile by Ray

ABOUT

Charles Eames, born 1907 in St. Louis, Missouri, studied architecture at Washington Universityin St. Louis and opened his own office together with Charles M. Gray in 1930. In 1935 he founded another architectural firm with Robert T. Walsh. After receiving a fellowship in 1938 from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, he moved to Michigan and assumed a teaching position in the design department the following year. In 1940, he and Eero Saarinen won first prize for their joint entry in the competition "Organic Design in Home Furnishings" organized by the New YorkMuseum of Modern Art. During the same year, Eames became head of the department of industrial design at Cranbrook, and in 1941 he married Ray Kaiser.

Steinberg's drawing on Eames chair @ the Eames studio

The Eames House, Case Study House #8,

Steinberg cat drawing

ABOUT

Ray Eames, née Bernice Alexandra Kaiser, was born in Sacramento, California in 1912. She attended the May Friend Bennet School in Millbrook, New York, and continued her studies in painting under Hans Hofmann through 1937. During this year she exhibited her work in the first exhibition of the American Abstract Artists group at the Riverside Museum in New York. She matriculated at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1940 and married Charles Eames the following year.