EAMES DESIGN
THE WORK OF THE OFFICE OF CHARLES AND RAY EAMES
John Neuhart, Marilyn Neuhart and Ray Eames
John Neuhart, Marilyn Neuhart and Ray Eames: EAMES DESIGN: THE WORK OF THE OFFICE OF CHARLES AND RAY EAMES. New York: Abrams, 1989. First edition. Thick quarto. Black cloth stamped in white. Photographically printed dust jacket. 464 pp. 3,500+ photographs and diagrams. Multiple fold-outs. Separate time-line poster laid in [as issued]. A nearly fine copy in a nearly fine dust jacket.
This is THE book on the Eames Team: 9 x 12 coffe-table book 464 pages and over 3,500 photographs (including multiple fold-outs and a separate time-line poster) giving minute details on over 200 projects from the Eames office archives, personally selected and edited by Ray with the help of her long-time employees, John and Marilyn Neuhart. Essential.
John and Marilyn Neuhart were staffers at the Eames Office and designed the Connections Exhibit, the first exhibit ever devoted soley to the work of the Eames Office. Produced in full cooperation with both Ray and Charles, the Connections Exhibit eventually became the basis for this book that the Neuhart's co-authored with Ray Eames after Charles' death.
The final word on reference material for anything pertaining to the Eameses. Everything you could possibly want to know about the Herman Miller Furniture, films, graphic design and exhibits of the prolific husband and wife team.
Nothing says modernist perfection like an Eames design. Though they are best known to the general public for their furniture, the husband and wife duo of Charles and Ray Eames (1907-78 and 1912-88, respectively) were also forerunners in the fields of architecture, industrial design, photography, and film. This book covers all the aspects of their illustrious career, from the earliest furniture experiments and molded plywood designs to the Case Study Houses to their work for Herman Miller and films such as the seminal short, Powers of Ten.
The Eameses adventurously pursued new ideas and forms with a sense of serious fun. Yet, it was rigorous discipline that allowed them to achieve perfection of form and mastery over materials. As Charles noted about the molded plywood chair, “Yes, it was a flash of inspiration,” he said, “a kind of 30-year flash.” Combining imagination and thought, art and science, Charles and Ray Eames created some of the most influential expressions of 20th century design – furniture that remains stylish, fresh and functional today.
”Eventually everything connects – people, ideas, objects, etc.,... the quality of the connections is the key to quality per se.” - Charles Eames
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.
”... everything hangs on something else..” - Ray Eames
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.