EA117 Desk Chair by Eames for Herman Miller, 1990s

American husband-and-wife team Charles and Ray Eames are world renowned for their hugely influential modern designs across media—furniture, architecture, graphics, and products—all characterized by a playful, clean aesthetic, which has proved highly accessible and enduring. Their work can be seen to parallel the evolution of postwar American design, from the rise of the West Coast to the global proliferation of American culture.

Charles Eames was born in 1907 in St. Louis, Missouri. He studied architecture at Washington University before being asked to leave for demanding more focus on modern designers such as Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1936, he accepted a fellowship to the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan, where he became head of the new design department. There, he collaborated with Eero Saarinen on the wooden furniture that won the Museum of Modern Art’s competition for Organic Design in Home Furnishings in 1940. The series included experimental molded plywood chairs.

Ray (née Kaiser) was born in 1912 in Sacramento, California. She spent her formative years in New York, studying with painter Hans Hofmann. Along with other of Hofmann’s students, she was a founding member of the American Abstract Artists, an organization that picketed galleries who refused to show non-representational art, and which contributed to the spread of Abstract Expressionism.

The two met at Cranbrook, married in 1941, and moved to Los Angeles, where they collaborated on mass-produced, low-cost furniture designs. During the war, they earned a contract with the US Navy to develop molded plywood leg splints for injured servicemen. Their ongoing work in domestic furniture was bolstered by access to the military’s resources, and, on establishing an office in Santa Monica, led to great successes with molded plywood. The first plywood piece, the iconic ECW (Eames Chair Wood) model, was initially produced in 1946 by Evans, and is still in production today. Charles and Ray Eames designed prefab architecture to meet the postwar housing demand, and, in 1949, designed their own California home as part of the Case Study House Program sponsored by Arts & Architecture Magazine. They continued to experiment throughout their career, with materials—expanding to furniture in fiberglass, plastics, and metals—and on a spectrum of projects, ranging from toy design to photography and film.

Nearly every design developed by the Eames Office has become beloved and collectible. Standout pieces include La Chaise, developed for MoMA’s International Competition for Low-Cost Furniture Design (1948); Molded Fiberglass Chairs (1950); Eames Storage Unit (1950-52); Lounge Chair & Ottoman (1956); and Aluminum Group Office Chairs (1958), with pieces manufactured by both Herman Miller in the US and Vitra in Europe. The Eameses received many honors in their lifetime and after: the Organic Furniture Competition, Museum of Modern Art (1940); Emmy Award in Graphics for The Fabulous Fifties (1960); Kaufmann International Design Award (1961); 25 Year American Institute of Architects Award (1977); Eliot Norton Chair of Poetry, Harvard (1971); Queen's Gold Medal for Architecture (1979); “Most Influential Designer of the 20th Century” by WORLDESIGN (1985); Industrial Designers Society of America (1985); and The Work of Charles and Ray Eames: A Legacy of Invention, Traveling Exhibition by the Library of Congress (1999).

Charles passed away in 1978; Ray passed away exactly a decade later, to the day.

Herman Miller came into being in 1923 when a company man by the name of D. J. De Pree (1891-1990) bought the majority shares of the Michigan Star Furniture Company, with the help of his father-in-law, for whom he named the new venture. Like other furniture manufacturers in West Michigan at the time, De Pree focused on the production of replicas of ornate, 18^th- and 19^th-century European wood furnishings, until a bankruptcy scare brought on by the Great Depression drove him to seek a new direction. In 1931, De Pree brought in commercial artist Gilbert Rohde, who convinced De Pree that honest, functional designs characterized by clean, simple lines were the way forward—and thus set the course for Herman Miller’s influence on what would become known as the midcentury modern style. Two years later, the first Rohde-designed collection debuted at the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago.

After Rohde passed away in 1944, De Pree hired architect-designer George Nelson as the company’s first official design director. By crafting a new, compelling corporate identity and collaborating with some of the most visionary designers of the day—Charles and Ray Eames, Isamu Noguchi, and Alexander Girard —Nelson earned the company international acclaim. Under his leadership, Herman Miller created some of the 20^th century’s most iconic objects, such as the Eameses’ DCM “Potato Chip” Chair (1945/46), Molded Fiberglass Chair (1950), and Eames Lounge Chair (1956); Noguchi’s Noguchi Table (1948); and Nelson’s own Bubble Lamps (1955) and Marshmallow Sofa (1965), to name a few. Notably, the Action Office Project I series by Robert Propst (1964) paved the way for adjustable and semi-enclosed work environments (a.k.a. cubicles) at a time when modernist design was increasingly adopted as the style for American corporate interiors. More recent office bestsellers include Bill Stumpf and Don Chadwick’s ubiquitous Aeron Chair (1994) and Studio 7.5’s high-tech, environmentally friendly Mirra Chair (2003).

Today Herman Miller and German manufacturer Vitra share many of the same licenses for midcentury modern masterpieces, the former sold in North America and the later in Europe. Much debate surrounds whether one produces better products than the other. The rivalry between the two companies notwithstanding, Herman Miller pieces have been extensively exhibited and acquisitioned into the permanent collections of institutions such as New York’s Museum of Modern Art, London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, and even Weil am Rhein’s Vitra Design Museum—and many, many more.

* All images courtesy of Herman Miller.