A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF HERMAN MILLER, INC.
The Eames Office, Herman Miller Furniture Company
[Eames Office, inc. Deborah Sussman and Barbara Charles] Herman Miller Furniture Company: A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF HERMAN MILLER, INC. Los Angeles, Graphics Press, 1967. Original edition. 14.5 x 42-inch poster printed in three colors and folded into quarters [as issued]. Close inspection reveals faint handling wear, as well as expected wear to the three folds, but a very good or better example. An amazing piece of work designed and produced by the Office of Ray and Charles Eames for the Herman Miller Furniture Company.
14.5 x 42 inch poster printed in three colors, with 350 images forming a coherent timeline of the modern movement in America from 1925 to 1965, in the following categories: popular culture (comics, film, literature, art), industrial design and furniture design, with a natural emphasis on the development of the Herman Miller Furniture Company.
PLEASE NOTE: Our composite scan is a four-image, high resolution flatbed composite of the poster.
”Eventually everything connects – people, ideas, objects, etc., . . . the quality of the connections is the key to quality per se.” — Charles Eames
Here is the description of this poster from EAMES DESIGN by John and Marilyn Neuhart and Ray Eames [page 323]:
The Eames Office produced an illustrated timeline for Herman Miller, Inc. in 1967. Beginning in 1927 and ending in 1967, the year of its publication, it shows in detail the works of designers George Nelson, Charles and Ray Eames, and Alexander Girard, from the date of their first association with Herman Miller in 1946, late 1946, and 1951, respectively.
The timeline is divided into three horizontal strips marked vertically in ten-year increments. The top band outlines developments in the arts (painting, sculpture, architecture, design, literature, music, dance film, theatre) and the work of other designers and architects. The middle band traces events in the history of Herman Miller, Inc., starting with the work of Gilbert Rohde for Herman Miller (their first involvement with the "modern' movement in furniture) in the 1930s. The professional biographies of Nelson, the Eameses, and Girard, including their work for Herman Miller and other major projects, occupy the bottom band.
The 14.5 – by – 42-inch wall chart was printed in three colors by Graphic Press in Los Angeles. Deborah Sussman and Barbara Charles worked on the design and research. It was given first to the Herman Miller International Group at a picnic at the Eames House on September 21, 1967, and later made available to Herman Miller clients and interested students. It is now out of print.
The following artisans have work that is reproduced on this amazing poster: Marcel Breuer, Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Eric Mendelsohn, Richard Neutra, Edward Wormley, William Lescaze, Alvar Aalto, Buckminster Fuller, Max Bill, Paul Rand, Herbert Matter, Dorothea Lange, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Frank Lloyd Wright, James Prestini, Bruno Mathsson, Eliel and Eero Saarinen, Bruno Nervi, Alvin Lustig, George Herriman, Raymond Loewy, Finn Juhl, Paul Rudolph, Hans Wegner, Piet Mondrian, Ben Shahn, Jean Cocteau, A. M. Cassandre, Josef Albers, Alexander Calder, John Entenza, Billy Wilder, Claus Oldenberg, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenburg, Gilbert Rohde, Alexander Girard, Charles Eames, Ray Eames, George Nelson, Henry Dreyfuss, Eliot Noyes, Harry Bertoia, Saul Bass, Gio Ponti, Florence Knoll, Poul Kjaerholm, Chermayeff/Geismar, Don Albinson and many others.
”. . . everything hangs on something else.” — Ray Eames
This is a rare opportunity to own a true piece of modern design history: this original Eames Office poster demands to be framed and displayed! Not only is it an amazing design artifact — it can settle any argument about Who, What, Where, When and Why modernism took hold in America.
Charles Eames (Missouri, 1907 – 1978) 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 fellowship at 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 known as 'Organic Design in Home Furnishings' – organized by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Eames was appointed head of the industrial design department at Cranbrook the same year.
Ray Eames (b. as Bernice Alexandra Kaiser, California, 1912–1988) attended Bennett College in Millbrook, New York, and continued her studies in painting at the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts until 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.
Charles and Ray Eames married in 1941 and moved to Los Angeles, where together they began experimenting with techniques for the three-dimensional moulding of plywood. The aim was to create comfortable chairs that were affordable. However, the war interrupted their work, and Charles and Ray turned instead to the design and development of leg splints made of plywood, which were manufactured in large quantities for the US Navy. In 1946, they exhibited their experimental furniture designs at MoMA. The Herman Miller Company in Zeeland, Michigan, subsequently began to produce Eames furniture. Charles and Ray participated in the 1948 'Low-Cost Furniture' competition at MoMA, and they built the Eames House in 1949 as their own private residence. In addition to their work in furniture design and architecture, they also regularly turned their hand to graphic design, photography, film and exhibition design.