Chair

So Cal Design
© Eames Office LLC
My gallery Comment Tag Order Photography*
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Chair

1940
Furnishings; Furniture
Mahogany, wool (replaced)
32 1/2 x 18 x 22 in. (82.55 x 45.72 x 55.88 cm)
Decorative Arts and Design Council Fund (M.2008.290.1)
Decorative Arts and Design
Not currently on public view

Curator Notes

This chair was an effort by architects Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen to create affordable modern furniture....
This chair was an effort by architects Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen to create affordable modern furniture. It was designed for and exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art’s 1941 Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition, which, as a press release declared, was intended “to discover good designers and engage them in the task of creating a better environment for today’s living.” The chair is a prototype that was never put into production. The technical innovation of molding plywood into a three-dimensional shape was fully realized and made affordable only after World War II.

(California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way," 2011-12)
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Bibliography

  • Kaplan, Wendy, ed. California Design, 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way. Los Angeles: Los  Angeles County Museum of Art; Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2011.
  • Kaplan, Wendy, ed. Living in a Modern Way: California Design, 1930-1965.  Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2013. 
  • Kaplan, Wendy, ed. California Design, 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way. Los Angeles: Los  Angeles County Museum of Art; Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2011.
  • Kaplan, Wendy, ed. Living in a Modern Way: California Design, 1930-1965.  Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2013. 
  • Tigerman, Bobbye, and Monica Obniski. Scandinavian Design and the United States, 1890-1980. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich: DelMonico Books-Prestel, 2020.
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Exhibition history

  • California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way" Los Angeles, CA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, October 1, 2011 - June 3, 2012
  • California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way" Tokyo, Japan, The National Art Center, Tokyo, March 20, 2013 - June 3, 2013
  • California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way" Los Angeles, CA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, October 1, 2011 - June 3, 2012
  • California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way" Tokyo, Japan, The National Art Center, Tokyo, March 20, 2013 - June 3, 2013
  • California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way" Auckland, New Zealand, Auckland Art Gallery, July 6, 2013 - September 29, 2013
  • California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way" South Brisbane, Australia, Queensland Art Gallery, November 2, 2013 - February 9, 2014
  • California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way" Salem, MA, Peabody Essex Museum, March 29, 2014 - July 6, 2014
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