Charles EAMES (1907 - 1978) - USA

Office Desk Chair by Charles & Ray Eames for Vitra, 1970 - L 58 x W 59 x H 83 cm. Gallery certificate will be given to the buyer. Shipping to Paris 100 eur 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 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. 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’sInternational 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. Awards 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) A Legacy of Invention, Traveling Exhibition by the Library of Congress (1999) The Aluminium Chair is one of the great furniture designs of the twentieth century. Charles and Ray Eames conceived and developed this chair in 1958 for the private residence of an art collector in Columbus, Indiana (USA). For its construction, the designer couple departed from the principle of the seat shell, instead stretching a panel of fabric or leather between two aluminium side members to create a taut but elastic seat. The chair adapts to the body of the sitter and is exceedingly comfortable, even without elaborate upholstery