Eames Ray

Eames Ray

Ray-Bernice Alexandra Kaiser Eames, née Kaiser (December 15, 1912 – August 21, 1988), was an American artist, designer, and filmmaker. In a creative partnership with her spouse Charles Eames and the Eames Office, she was responsible for groundbreaking contributions in the field of architecture, furniture design, industrial design, manufacturing, and the photographic arts.

The graphics and commercial artwork can be clearly attributed to Ray, she designed twenty-six cover designs for the journal Arts & Architecture during 1942 to 1948, and a major part of the Eames furniture advertisements at Herman Miller (since 1948). In the late 1940s, Ray Eames created several textile designs, two of which, “Crosspatch” and “Sea Things”, were produced by Schiffer Prints, a company that also produced textiles by Salvador Dalí and Frank Lloyd Wright. Two of her textile patterns were distinguished with awards in a textile competition (organized by MoMA). She worked on graphics for advertising, magazine covers, posters, timelines, game boards, invitations, and business cards. Original examples of Ray Eames textiles can be found in many art museum collections. The Ray Eames textiles have been re-issued by Maharam as part of their “Textiles of the Twentieth Century” collection. Between 1945 and 1978 the Eames office produced many furniture designs that went into commercial production, many of which utilized plywood. The first of the Eameses’ plywood pieces was a splint made for the US Navy. This idea came when one of Eameses medical friends, told her in detail about some of the problems caused by unhygienic metal splints. The metal splints were mass produced and therefore used simple designs molded in one plane rather the more ergonomic compound curved design which would better respond to the human body. The Navy commissioned the Eameses to mass produce their design. Their company became the Molded Plywood Products Division.

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