- Designer
- Charles Eames
United States, active United States, California, Venice, 1907-1978 - Textile manufacturer
- Heywood-Wakefield
United States, Massachusetts, Gardner, 1897-1979 - Title
- Chair
- Date Made
- 1940
- Medium
- Mahogany, wool (replaced)
- Dimensions
- 32 1/2 x 18 x 22 in. (82.55 x 45.72 x 55.88 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2008.290.1
- Collecting Area
- Decorative Arts and Design
- Curatorial Notes
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)
- Selected 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.
- 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.
- Selected Exhibition History
- California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". October 1, 2011 - June 3, 2012
- California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". March 20, 2013 - June 3, 2013
- California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". July 6, 2013 - September 29, 2013
- California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". November 2, 2013 - February 9, 2014
- California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". March 29, 2014 - July 6, 2014
- Copyright
- © Eames Office LLC
