Collection: Charles & Ray Eames

Ray Eames (Alexandra Bernice Kaiser) Born 15 December 1912 Sacramento, California, USA. Died 21 August 1988 Los Angeles, California, USA. 1933–1939 Studies art at the private art school headed by the German painter Hans Hofmann in New York City and Provincetown, Massachusetts. 1940 Attends the weaving class at Cranbrook Academy

Charles & Ray Eames 1941 Marriage and move to Los Angeles. 1941–1945 Experiments in three-dimensional moulding of plywood; development of a production process for plywood mouldings on an industrial scale; first practical application of the method in a leg splint for the U.S. Navy (1942, production by Plyformed Wood, Venice, California); starting in 1942 Ray Eames designs the cover of the magazine Arts & Architecture. 1944–1949 Designs an extensive collection of plywood furniture. 1946 Eames plywood furniture presented at MoMA; beginning of collaboration with the Herman Miller Furniture Company in Zeeland, Michigan, USA. 1948–1953 Enters MoMA’s international Low-Cost Furniture competition with chairs made of sheet steel and sheet aluminium; thereafter develops the world’s first chairs with a shell made of plastic. 1949 Building of the Eames House in Santa Monica, California, as Case Study House No. 8. 1951–1953 Development of furniture made of wire. 1956 Launch of the Lounge Chair. 1958 Launch of the Aluminum Group after a development period of just one year; successive shifts of focus from furniture design to the production of photo series, films and exhibitions. 1959 Participation in the American National Exhibition in Moscow where their work Glimpses of the U.S.A. is screened on several big screens at once. 1960/61 Concept and realization of the touring exhibition Mathematica for IBM. 1964/65 Design of the IBM Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair with Eero Saarinen. 1973–1976 Concept and realization of the touring exhibition The World of Franklin and Jefferson. 1978–1988 Ray Eames leaves the estate to the Library of Congress and the Vitra Design Museum.

Text: Mathias Remmele