Finding Aid for the Charles & Ray Eames ephemera and photographs, circa 1951-circa 1962 0000247
Finding aid prepared by Jillian O'Connor and Chris Marino
Architecture and Design Collection, Art, Design & Architecture Museum
Arts Building Room 1434
University of California
Santa Barbara, California, 93106-7130
805-893-2724
adc@museum.ucsb.edu
Title: Charles & Ray Eames ephemera and photographs
Identifier/Call Number: 0000247
Contributing Institution:
Architecture and Design Collection, Art, Design & Architecture Museum
Language of Material:
English
Physical Description:
3.0 Linear feet
(1 box)
Date (inclusive): circa 1951-circa 1962
creator:
Eames, Charles
creator:
Eames, Ray
Partially processed collection, open for use by qualified researchers.
Charles & Ray Eames ephemera and photographs, Architecture and Design Collection. Art, Design & Architecture Museum; University
of California, Santa Barbara.
The Eames Studio, known primarily for their furniture, exhibition, and architectural design was established by the husband
and wife design team Charles and Ray Eames in 1941.
Charles Eames was born in 1907 in St. Louis, Missouri. He studied architecture at Washington University for two years. In
1930 he began an architectural practice in St. Louis with Charles Grey. In 1938 Charles Eames moved to Michigan to study architecture
at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, where he later would become a teacher and the head of the industrial design department. After
divorcing his first wife, Charles married his Cranbrook colleague Ray Kaiser.
Ray Kaiser Eames was born on December 15, 1912 in Sacramento, California. She attended the Bennett Women’s College in Millbrook,
New York, where she studied abstract expressionist painting with Hans Hofmann. In 1940 Ray Eames began at the Cranbrook Academy
of Art, where she met Charles Eames.
Once the two were married they relocated to Los Angeles, where they established the Eames Studio. During the war they were
commissioned by the Navy to produce molded plywood splints and stretchers and by 1946, Evans Products began producing the
Eameses’ modeled plywood furniture. Later on in their career they began to design museum exhibits and venture into photography
and filmmaking. Charles Eames died in 1978 and Ray Eames died in 1988. After Charles Eames death the firm dissolved.
The Charles & Ray Eames ephemera and photographs span 3 linear feet and date from circa 1951 to circa 1962. The collection
consists of printed ephemera and black-and-white photographs. Printed ephemera take the form of advertisements for Eames furniture
designs manufactured by the Herman Miller Furniture Company; for an Eames lecture at the University of California, Los Angeles;
and for Eames movies and television programs. Photographic prints in the collection document interior and exterior photographs
of the Eames house in Pacific Palisades, California, as well as their Moscow exhibit, and portraits of the husband and wife
design team.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Eames, Charles
Eames, Ray
Photographic prints
Printed ephemera