Designer and artist Ray Eames was instrumental in creating some of the mid-century modern styles and products adored and coveted by a post-World War II America, but in her time received almost no credit for her contributions. Co-designer of all of the wildly successful Eames products, it was her husband, Charles, who was hailed as the genius behind the brand. Seemingly happy to take the credit and be the sole face and voice of the company, he did still proclaim, “anything I can do, Ray can do better…”, and insisted she was his equal partner, collaborator, and innovator in the business and designs. But society was unwilling to acknowledge or believe in a woman’s talents, and for decades the Eames’ success was attributed to him alone.

Born Bernice Kaiser in 1912, in Sacramento, California, Ray (nicknamed Ray-Ray as a child) was drawn to art and expression from a young age. She was a member of the art association in high school, a student of fashion illustration and commercial advertising-graphic design at Sacramento Junior College, and a student of art and modern dance at the May Friend Bennett School in New York.

Most fundamental of all of her art studies were the years in the 1930s that she studied painting with German expressionist and color enthusiast, Hans Hoffman, in New York City. These classes focused on structure, form, color, and Hoffman’s own “push pull” technique, which created a sense of tension within an artwork, and the feeling of movement, energy, and aliveness in static 2D designs.

Hoffman was also a seminal figure in introducing abstract modern art to an American public that at that time, did not yet appreciate it, though the movement was widely popular throughout Europe (think Mondrian, Miró, and Kandinsky…). In the States, abstract art was considered so avant-garde and on the fringes of society, it was excluded from major art shows and galleries. To counteract this, the American Abstract Artists Group was born. This group of artists campaigned for non-representational art’s acceptance into the American art world and its institutions, and protested its exclusion. They organized their own shows, held lectures, and helped to educate a sometimes hostile public on abstract art. Ray was a founding member. 

When Ray left New York City, it was to be with her mother, who was ill, and she stayed with her through her eventual passing. Afterwards, unsure of where to go or what to do, she took a friend’s advice, and enrolled at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, known for its wide range of art and craft modalities, which could help to expand her artistic repertoire. Starting in 1940, Ray began classes there, learning metalwork with artist Harry Bertoia (a future Eames employee), as well as weaving, and design. And when she assisted the head of the industrial design department, Charles Eames, and his friend, architect Eero Saarinen, with their submission for MOMA’s Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition (making a chair that was a clear precursor of later Eames designs), the two fell in love.

Newly married, Ray and Charles drove out to California in 1941, drawn by Los Angeles’ flat expanses, which felt like an empty spaciousness that could support their creative endeavors.

Working out of their apartment when not taking paying jobs (Charles, creating set designs for the art department at MGM Studios in Hollywood, and Ray, designing covers for Art & Architecture magazine - she did 26 in total), the two explored methods of molding plywood into gently bending and curving shapes.

Their first success came that same year, with the invention of a machine they called, The Kazam!, which was able to apply pressure to wood without breaking it. Ray was instrumental in fine tuning the workings of the mechanism, and spent hours on the machine while Charles was at the studio.

The first designs created by the Kazam! were molded plywood sculptures in shapes reminiscent of those found in Ray’s early paintings, and the sketches for the designs were done by her as well.

These sculptures soon metamorphosed into ergonomic leg splints when a doctor friend of theirs mentioned the heavy and rigid metal ones being used for injured soldiers, that injured the men more with their ill-fitting design. Inspired to create something better, Ray and Charles designed a lighter, more comfortable, and better fitting plywood version using the technology they’d already created, and sold more than 150,000 to the U.S. Navy (with a patent that was only under Charles’ name). They expanded their operations to produce molded plywood stretchers and aircraft parts as well, and with the profits were able to continue their design explorations, and open up an official Eames Office in 1943. 

At the new office in Venice, California, the couple continued to explore the possibilities of manipulating plywood, putting the knowledge and skills they’d gained crafting their sculptures and leg splints towards furniture design. Initially produced in-house, the pieces were soon sold via Herman Miller, and once the Eames products joined the Miller catalog, Ray and Charles began to create advertisements, brochures, and pamphlets as well.

The Eames Office designed the Herman Miller showroom in Los Angeles, the lobby interiors of the Time & Life Building in New York, several toys and printed textile designs, over 100 films (short films, educational and promotional productions, and avant-garde experiments), exhibitions, and a few houses (the Max and Esther de Pree House, an unbuilt home for director Billy Wilder, the pre-fab Eames Modular House, and their own family home). They also did PR and marketing for IBM in a relationship that lasted for years. With all of their endeavors, the ethos was a Bauhaus style of form follows function, where beauty was created not for its own sake, but because it most intelligently solved a design problem. The essential constraints forever key to their methodology were anticipating the needs of a situation or people, and solving a problem. Focused on making “the best for the most for the least”, they brought modernism’s functional, minimalist beauty to the mainstream.

Ray’s influence on and steering of the Eames brand’s success cannot be overstated. While each brought their own unique talents to the partnership, Ray’s creativity, ideas, vison, and talent for art direction, composition, colors, shapes, and patterns took the Eames’ designs to the next level. Her innovations satisfied the wants and needs of the masses, and in her own words, she contributed to each design in “a million ways…” (-fembio.org). She was known for her ability to hold both the big picture of a design, and its smallest details together in her mind at once, and she was responsible for most of the brand’s graphic designs and playful use of color. A direct link can be traced from the abstract shapes in her early paintings, to the shapes of furniture she and Charles later created, and the “push pull” technique she learned from Hoffman seems reborn in their designs.

Some of the Eames’ most iconic pieces include:

The LCW - Lounge Chair Wood, 1946: A chic minimalist modern molded plywood chair that launched the Eames furniture line, and was declared the chair of the century by Time magazine in 1999. It was one in a series of four different options that were designed and sold together.

The other models included the DCW - Dining Chair Wood, 1946: a very similar design to the LCW, but featuring a more upright back, and longer legs for sitting at a table, the LCM - Lounge Chair Metal, and the DCM - Dining Chair Metal, both the same as their all wood equivalents, but with metal frames and legs.

La Chaise, 1948: A sculptural seat of plastic and rubber composite designed for both sitting and reclining, that in the end, was deemed too expensive for mass production, but was released by the brand Vitra in 1991.

Molded Plastic Shell Chair, 1950: A novel and new design with no separation between back, armrests, and seat. Ray and Charles were the first to use fiberglass for furniture, and consulted with engineers who created fiberglass airplane components for the military. Originally made with plastic reinforced fiberglass, the chairs were reformulated using polypropylene in more recent years, and then made with fiberglass again when production techniques improved. More recently, they’ve been made with post-consumer recycled materials.

Dining Side Chair Plastic, 1951: A lightweight and durable chair that appears quite simple to make, but was actually harder to produce than the molded shell armchair above, because of the lack of armrests, which made them less stable. Early prototypes also tended to split and crack. The final design, still in use today, features a thicker, more stable shell that’s available in a variety of colors and legs.

Stacking Chair, 1955: This version of the Plastic Side Chair ingeniously and easily stacks one atop the other, with a lightweight design that features open legs and built-in side hooks and loops for linking them together.

Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman, 1956: This luxury chair was first made as a gift for the Eames’ friend, film director Billy Wilder, and is an iconic mid-century modern design, still coveted today. The modern chair features separate molded plywood pieces lined with leather cushions that hug and support the body.

Soft Pad Chaise, 1968: This modern lounge chair was also designed for their friend, director Billy Wilder, as a comfortable place to nap during filming.

The Eames’ commercially successful and culturally significant designs were absolutely trending in their time, and could be found in schools, airports, offices, public buildings, private homes, movies, ads, and on magazine and album covers.

Extending beyond furniture design, they also created several toys. One best-seller was their House of Cards, which took the existing game of building towers of cards, and improved upon it, with notched cards that securely slotted together for better building. They also designed The Little Toy, a collection of wire frames and printed cardboard panels that could be assembled into modular architectural designs.

Bringing their love of designing to their own private universe, the Eames also designed and built their family home (with separate studio) in the Pacific Palisades, as part of Art & Architecture’s Case Study House program, which sought to showcase and promote affordable modern homes to the post-war public. The Eames created the Case Study House #8 in 1949, a celebrated design with a modern approach that proved the possibilities of pre-fab housing when that concept was still relatively new. All of the materials were prefabricated off-the-shelf industrial components or factory units, and the 1,500 square foot glass and steel home was erected within days. With 17 foot high ceilings and walls of windows that let in natural light, the house is spacious and airy. Views look out on grassy meadows and the Pacific Ocean, and the home is surrounded by a stand of eucalyptus trees. Inside, paintings hang from ceilings for viewing while lying down, and the minimalist Mondrian-like exterior opens to a cozy, colorful, art filled space that the couple lived in until the end of their lives. The house is preserved and maintained today by the Eames Foundation, with planning assistance from the Getty Conservation Institute, and is a National Historic Landmark.

In recent years, recognition of Ray’s contributions to the Eames groundbreaking catalog of designs has been growing, and will hopefully continue to grow, as the iconic and much beloved mid-century modern style would simply not be what it is without her.

Photos courtesy of The Eames Office LLC, eamesoffice.com, eames.com, vitra.com, archdaily.com, architecturaldigest.in, moma.org, disegnojournal.com, lumens.com, lamag.com, Victor Delaqua, metropolismag.com, 1stdibs.com, vntg.com, pinterest.com, architectuul.com, Cranbrook Archives, cranbrookkitchensink.com, bythemodern.com, catalogue.swanngalleries.com, sellmallsm.pics, bluprint-onemega.com, and blogmejazz.blogspot.com.