Charles and Ray Eames
Eames, Charles (āmz) , 1907–78, American designer, b. St. Louis, Mo. He opened his own architectural practice in 1930 and in the late 30s studied with Eliel Saarinen at the Cranbrook Academy, Bloomfield Hills, Mich., later teaching there, and becoming head of the design department. In 1941 he married Cranbrook colleague Ray Kaiser Eames, and they settled in California. Together they created some of 20th-century America's most influential designs for furniture, interiors, fabrics, toys, and other consumer goods, most manufactured with mass-production techniques. Most famous is the stackable “Eames chair,” with its molded-plywood back and seat and stainless steel legs. In 1949 they designed their now iconic Pacific Palisades home. They also worked in photography and film, making dozens of short films, e.g., Powers of Ten (1977), and designed numerous museum exhibitions.
- Columbia University Press, Encyclopedia
Eames, Ray-Bernice Alexandra Kaiser, 1912 -88, American artist, designer, architect and filmmaker who, together with her husband Charles, is responsible for many classic, iconic designs of the 20th century. She was born in Sacramento, California. Having lived in a number of cities during her youth, in 1933 she moved to New York, where she studied abstract painting with Hans Hofmann. In September 1940 she began studies at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where she met Charles Eames, marrying him the following year. Settling in Los Angeles, California, Charles and Ray Eames would lead an outstanding career in design and architecture (for details see "Charles Eames"). Ray Eames died in Los Angeles in 1988, ten years to the day after Charles.