Ray and Charles Working on a Conceptual Model for the Exhibition Mathematica, 1960, photograph. Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress (A-22a)
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. 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.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Charles Eames grew up in America's industrial heartland. As a young man he worked for engineers and manufacturers, anticipating his lifelong interest in mechanics and the complex working of things. Ray Kaiser, born in Sacramento, California, demonstrated her fascination with the abstract qualities of ordinary objects early on. She spent her formative years in the orbit of New York's modern art movements and participated in the first wave of American-born abstract artists.
Ray's abstract cover designs for Arts & Architecture magazine signified the Los Angeles-based magazine's commitment to avant-garde art, architecture, music, and film.
Designed for the California Museum of Science and Industry in Los Angeles, Mathematica was the first of many major science exhibitions produced by the Eames Office.
Ray and Charles Working on a Conceptual Model for the Exhibition Mathematica, 1960, photograph. Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress (A-22a)
From 1943 to 1988, the Eames Office was located in a renovated garage at 901 Washington Boulevard in Venice, then an industrial section of Los Angeles.
Charles's Office, 1976, photograph. Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress (A-23)
From 1943 to 1988, the Eames Office was located in a renovated garage at 901 Washington Boulevard in Venice, then an industrial section of Los Angeles.
Charles's Office, 1976, photograph. Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress (A-23)
For the Eameses, the design process would be successful only by identifying the overlapping needs of client, society, and designer and developing products that would serve all three.
Diagram by Charles. Displayed in the 1969 Exhibition Qu'est-ce Que Le Design? (What is Design?) at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, photograph. Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress (A-20)
Slides by the Eameses
Multi-screen slide shows were perhaps the Eameses most effective method for presenting everyday things in new ways and relationships. Encompassing an enormous breadth of subject matter, the slide shows were assembled for school courses and lectures as well as for corporate events. For these elaborate presentations, the Eameses drew upon their meticulously catalogued collection of approximately 350,000 slides: their very own "cabinet of curiosity."
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Ray holding Dot Pattern Fabric Design, circa 1947, photograph. Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress (A-15)
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Tic Tac Toe Fabric Design by Ray, circa 1947, ink on gold paper. Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress (A-11)
Ray's Desk, 1976, photograph. Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress (A-24)
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Christmas Card Designed by Charles and Ray in 1946, photographic reproduction. Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress (A-22b)
Like Ray's magazine covers, her textile designs translated abstract art into useful, everyday objects. Dot Pattern was never commercially produced.
Dot Pattern fabric design by Ray, circa 1947, pencil on tracing paper. Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress (A-12)
First submitted to a competition at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1947, Crosspatch was then commercially produced by Schiffer Prints.
Crosspatch Fabric Design by Ray, 1945, photographic reproduction. Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress (A-10r)
The Eameses' correspondence with Henry Ford urged him to make "standard production models" and demonstrated their confidence that industry and designers could collaborate to produce beautiful, mass-produced goods.
"A Sample Lesson," an experimental, multimedia course presented at the University of Georgia and then at UCLA, sought to break down the barriers of the typical university curriculum in order to de-compart-mentalize students' thinking and create free and intuitive learners.
Invitation to "A Sample Lesson" at the University of California, Los Angeles, 1953, printed paper. Page 2 - Page 3. Lent by Lucia Eames (A-46)
Beginning with the film The Information Machine in 1957, the Eameses helped IBM make science and technology accessible to lay people through a series of more than 50 films, exhibitions, and books.
Pages from Charles's Proposal for an Exhibition about Computers at IBM's Headquarters in Armonk, New York, August 1967, pencil and ink on paper with typed text. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (A-33)
Charles became one of the country's leading cultural diplomats, helping to shape arts-related programs through his service on various councils. The National Council on the Arts is the advisory board of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Charles's Notes from a National Council on the Arts Meeting, 1971, handwritten document on paper. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (A-48)
Published in conjunction with an American Abstract Artists exhibition in New York, Ray's work was included in this show, which was organized by an important group of modern artists.
Lithograph by Ray and Exhibition Portfolio Title Sheet, 1937, lithograph. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (A-14a-b)
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Letter Sent by Charles from Moscow to His Daughter, Lucia, and her Family, 1959, photographic reproduction. Courtesy the Eames Family (A-18)
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President Richard Nixon, Charles, and Nancy Hanks of the National Endowment for the Arts at the White House, 1973, photograph. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (A-47)
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Charles's Notes for a Lecture, circa 1974, pencil on paper. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (A-34)
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Charles's Notes from a National Council on the Arts Meeting, 1973, handwritten notes on paper. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (A-49)
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Fashion Drawings by Ray, 1930s, various media on paper. Additional drawings: two - three. Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress (A-06)
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Christmas and New Year's Card. Design by Ray, 1933-34, pencil on paper. Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress (A-5)
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Christmas and New Year's Card. Design by Ray, 1933-34, photographic reproduction. Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress (A-4r)
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Prints of European Cities by Charles. Based on 1929 Travel Sketches, lithographs. Lent by Lucia Eames (A-17)
Charles and Ray met at the Cranbrook Academy of Art outside Detroit in 1940. Cranbrook's holistic design approach and its creed of better living through better design shaped their sensibilities and their shared agenda. They married in 1941 and joined the westward migration to Los Angeles as the city was gearing up for World War II. Wartime experiments with new materials and technologies inspired the Eameses' low-cost furniture for Herman Miller and later housing designs and demonstrated expanded ways for designers to work with industry. The Eameses also developed new partnerships with universities and government agencies, as their interests expanded beyond the design of objects.
In the 1930s Ray exhibited her paintings and studied with Hofmann, one of the decade's most important teachers and painters.
Announcement for Hans Hofmann's School, 1933 printed document. Page 2. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (A-13)
The WPA was a New Deal model of the activist, culturally beneficent government that would support the Eameses' postwar projects.
Charles (Center) Working for the Historic American Buildings Survey, Missouri, 1934, a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project, photograph. Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress (A-31)
Charles studied architecture for two years at Washington University and later opened an architectural office with Walsh. Their Meyer House combined modern design and elegant materials -- hallmarks of Charles and Ray's own home built in Los Angeles in 1949.
Meyer House, Huntleigh Village, Missouri, designed by Charles with Robert Walsh, 1936-38, photograph. (A-43)
The design's rectangular volumes and glass walls anticipate the Eameses' 1949 house in Los Angeles.
Sketch by Charles of a Studio, circa 1940, pencil on paper. Lent by Cranbrook Art Museum (A-38)
Co-authors Eames and John Entenza advocated innovative uses of wartime materials and technologies, as well as collaborations with sociologists, economists, and scientists, to solve the housing shortage.
Charles's diagram for "What is a House?" an article published in Arts & Architecture, July 1944 (A-42)
At Cranbrook, Charles was a design instructor from 1939 to 1940. Ray studied weaving, ceramics, and metalwork in 1941.
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Sketches and Notes by Ray of Ringling Brothers Circus Acts at New York's Madison Square Garden, 1938, pencil on paper. Page 2 - Page 3. Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress (A-7b-d)
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Stationery, probably designed by Ray, before 1941. Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress (A-21a,b)
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U.S. Post Office, St. Louis, Missouri, by Charles, 1931, etching on paper. Lent by Lucia Eames (A-51)
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Ray with Cat Mask, 1971, photograph. Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress (A-1)
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Charles with Clown Mask, 1977, photograph. Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress (A-16)
