#eames design

uwmspeccoll:

An Eames Decorative Sunday

This Sunday, we are sharing some images from The Work of Charles and Ray Eames,published by Abrams in 1997 to accompany a international touring exhibition of the the Eames’ work organized by theLibrary of Congress and the Vitra Design Museum. 

Charles Eames (June 17, 1907 - August 21, 1978) originally trained as an architect, studying at Washington University in his hometown of St. Louis, but his design sensibilities proved too radical and he never completed the program. After some architectural work in St. Louis, he was invited as a fellow to Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI and soon after starting began running the schools industrial design program. 

Ray Eames (née Kaiser; December 15, 1912 – August 21, 1988) trained as a painter and was a founding member of the American Abstract Artists group, but she had also harbored thoughts of studying engineering. After taking a break from painting to care for her ailing mother, she applied to Cranbrook with the intension of moving her artistic practice beyond painting.

At Cranbrook, Charles and Ray’s lives began to intersect. As soon as Charles first marriage (which had been disintegrating for years) officially ended, the pair wed. Charles once defined the act of design as “any time one or more things are consciously put together in a way that they can accomplish something better than they could have accomplished individually.” This could as easily define their marriage; together Charles and Ray Eames were a tour de force in twentieth century design. While they are best known for their furniture, their contributions to graphic design, architecture, textile design, film, and fine art are not to be overlooked. 

“From the 1940s to the 1970s, the Los Angeles-based husband and wife team practiced design at its most virtuous and its most expansive: their furniture, toys, buildings, films, graphics, exhibitions, and books all aimed to improve society–not only functionally but also culturally and intellectually” - The Work of Charles and Ray Eames, front flap

ViewmoreDecorative Sunday posts here.

-Olivia, Special Collections Graduate Intern

I think my folks had one of those molded fiberglass shell chairs – the orange, not the yellow one.

But I might have just dreamed that.

How could they have afforded it back then?

And my dad, god he was a pretentious hip bastard who wanted to be a suffering artist (because suffering for art would be so much more cool than working in office to support a family) – how could he have admitted to wanting something “plastic” no matter how stylish?

One thing I definitely did not dream is the box of Eames House of Cards.

You could “build” things by slotting the cards together.

That box of cards with their strange and beautiful images was one of the only things I was allowed to pack when my mom moved us out to California.

Damn, now I wish. I wish …

I wish I had even one single thing left as a keepsake of that life.