Husband and wife Charles and Ray Eames collaborated as equal partners in a 50 - year career that sweep the worlds of graphics , furniture , expo , and computer architecture . A newfangled exposition highlights Ray ’s contribution to one of the most noted invention partnerships in chronicle .
Ray Eames : In the Spotlight , an exposition co - presented by Art Center , the Eames Office , and the A+D Museum , is a joyful look at the unique perspective she brought to the Eames Office work . But it ’s also an test of the changing principle for working woman in the fifties and 60s : Although it was clean to everyone that they work as a squad , for many of their other task , only Charles was listed as the designer .
The show , which is curated by Carla Hartman , features Ray ’s letters , musical note , vignette , picture , photographs , process drawing , film titles , and , of course , theirfamous fiberglass chairs , each of them pop with people of colour and grain that would come to define the Eames ’s work . But even more telling is the way she convey her designer eye to everyday aliveness , from the collections that sprawled across ledge in their famous home , to her penchant for create elaborate board background , arrange everything from intellectual nourishment to flowers in sensational , colorful tableaux that were almost too beautiful to shake up .
In the documentaryEames : The Architect and the Painter , Ray was dubbed as the “ catamount , ” although the film admits she seldom paint : It was more about a manner of seeing and interpreting the world . But as the exhibition testify , the Eameses baulk being relegate to roles , grammatical gender - based or otherwise . As Charles once say , “ imagine of our oeuvre as basically that of tradesmen — the tools we use are often connect with the arts but we habituate them to work out problem which are assigned or we discern . ”
Ray ’s grandson Eames Demetrios , a talented artist and movie maker who also made ashort filmabout the show , thought it was important to focus on Ray ’s contributions to highlight the way she worked . “ multitude like to parse partnerships , ” he told me . “ In reckon at Charles and Ray , for example , there is been a tendency to fall back on the whimsy of Ray as an creative person — but unluckily in the style that masses say an Olympian whizz is a innate athlete ( as if they had not been up every morning at 5:30 a.m. for 15 years preparation ) . So this show helps us see Ray in action as a designer , using the Eamesian values in projection where she happened to do most of the hands - on workplace . ”
Ray Eames : In the Spotlightis on sight until May 4 at Art Center College of Design ’s Williamson Gallery in Pasadena , California .
Ray Eames , To Hofmann Love From Buddha , circa 1941 , marker , pen , newspaper , tissue paper paper , 6.375 x 11″
Ray Eames : Colored drawing for a Mobile River for John Entenza , other forties . Eames Family Collection .
Ray Kaiser : newspaper publisher dame and dress , other 1930s . Eames Family Collection .
Charles and Ray Eames : The Eames House , 1949 . Photographer Eames Demetrios , 1994 . © Eames Office LLC
Ray Kaiser : little synopsis , ink on vellum , 1937 . Eames Family Collection .
Film titles for Love in the Afternoon , head by Billy Wilder , 1957
Ray Eames playing with light and shadow at Strathmore apartment , Los Angeles , former 1940s . lensman Charles Eames . Eames Family Collection .
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