Charles & Ray Eames
Charles & Ray Eames
Charles & Ray Eames are among the most important personalities of 20th-century design. They designed furniture, made films, photographed and curated exhibitions. As the only authorised manufacturer of their products for Europe and the Middle East, Vitra offers you the security of owning an original Eames product.
Born in 1907 in St Louis, Missouri, Charles Eames studied architecture at Washington University in St Louis and designed a number of houses and churches in collaboration with various partners. His work caught the attention of Eliel Saarinen, who offered him a scholarship to the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan in 1938. In 1940, he and Eero Saarinen won first prize in the ‘Industrial Design Competition for the 21 American Republics’ - also called ‘Organic Design in Home Furnishings’ - organised by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Eames was appointed head of the industrial design department at Cranbrook the same year.
She studied painting at Bennett College in Millbrook, New York. She studied at Bennett College in Millbrook, New York, and continued her studies in painting at the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts until 1937. and in 1937 she participated in the first exhibition of abstract American artists at the Riverside Museum in New York. In 1940, she enrolled at the Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Charles and Ray Eames married in 1941 and moved to Los Angeles, where they began experimenting together with techniques for three-dimensional bending of plywood. The aim was to create comfortable chairs that were affordable. However, the war interrupted their work and instead Charles and Ray focused on designing and developing leg splints made of plywood, which were produced in large quantities for the US Navy. In 1946, they exhibited their experimental furniture designs at MoMA. After that, the Herman Miller Company in Zeeland, Michigan began producing Eames furniture. Charles and Ray entered MoMA's ‘Low-Cost Furniture’ competition in 1948 and built the Eames House as their own private residence in 1949. In addition to their work in furniture design and architecture, they also regularly experimented with graphic design, photography, film and exhibition design. In 1957, Vitra signed a licensing agreement with Herman Miller and began producing the Eames duo's designs for Europe and the Middle East. Charles and Ray Eames strongly influenced Vitra and continue to do so today. It was meeting their work that marked the company's beginnings as a furniture manufacturer. But it was not only Charles and Ray Eames' products that left their mark on Vitra. Their design philosophy makes an important contribution to the company's values, orientation and goals even today.
The extent of this influence is reflected most clearly in the question that is always asked at Vitra when important design decisions are made:What would Charles and Ray say? During their life together, the couple provided answers to that question during their trips to Europe and repeated visits to California. Since the deaths of Charles (1978) and Ray (1988), Vitra has remained in close contact with the Eames family, which now manages the Eames Office, on all matters concerning the preservation, further development and production of Eames designs. As the only authorised manufacturer of their products for Europe and the Middle East, Vitra offers you the security of owning an original Eames product.
Charles and Ray Eames' furniture has been a cornerstone of the Vitra Design Museum's collection since its inception. In 1988, the museum received many of the objects from the couple's estate. After presenting ‘The Work of Charles and Ray Eames’ exhibition in 1997/98, the Vitra Design Museum is now organising a comprehensive retrospective of the couple's life's work in 2017/18, entitled ‘An Eames Celebration’, divided into four parallel exhibitions at the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein. To celebrate the occasion, the Vitra Design Museum has published the ‘Eames Furniture Sourcebook’ and ‘Essential Eames:Words & Pictures’.
