Biography

The couple's collaboration is one of the greatest double careers in the field of design in the 20th century. The most popular pieces of furniture from their collaboration include the plastic shell chairs (1950), the lounge chair (1956) and the "Aluminum Group" office chairs from 1958.

Ray Eames (née Kaiser) studied art at several art schools in Manhattan, among others, and developed an abstract style. As a member of the American Abstract Artists, she exhibited her work in a gallery in New York from 1937 to 1940. In 1940, she went to the Cranbook Academy of Art near Chicago for a few months to study design and there collaborated with Harry Bertoia on the exhibition "Organic Design in Home Furnishing" for the Museum of Modern Art in New York, a competition won by Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen. Charles Eames studied architecture in St. Louis and opened his own architect’s office in 1930. In 1938 he received a scholarship to the Cranbrook Academy of Art, and a year later was offered a teaching position there.

In 1941, Ray and Charles Eames married and founded the "Plyformes Products Company" in Pacific Palisades/Los Angeles, where they successfully tested new forms and manufacturing processes for furniture made from bent plywood. In the couple's collaboration, Ray took care of the artistic-aesthetic part, while Charles was in charge of the technical part, a great example being the lounge chair 'La Chaise' from 1948, but also visible in other designs.

In 1946, the Museum of Modern Art dedicated a first solo exhibition to the Eames. Charles and Ray worked closely with Herman Miller's company, with whom they developed a very progressive, rational furniture design.

In 1949, the couple built a home as part of Art & Architecture magazine's “Case Studies Homes“, with several architects coming up with designs for modern yet affordable model homes. The Eames House, whose exterior design is reminiscent of the work of Piet Mondrian, served as their home and is now under monumental protection.

The designs made of pressure-formed sheet steel, with which Charles and Ray Eames won another competition (International Competition for Low-Cost Furniture Design) of the MOMA a few years later (1948), were kept in a reduced, but still organic form. The designs submitted already have a very similar design language to the seat shell chairs made of fiberglass-reinforced plastic designed two years later. The production of molded sheet steel for furniture construction turned out to be too complex and expensive, so that they soon switched to the new - lighter and easier to process - plastic.

In 1957, the Vitra company, under the direction of company founder Willi Fehlbaum, started producing Charles and Ray Eames' designs for Europe and the Middle East. A lasting friendship developed that shaped the Swiss company.

The two designers not only designed furniture that became icons of the 20th century. They were also successful photographers and filmmakers for IBM, Herman Miller and Boeing.

Objects by Charles Eames