Description

Eames House Bird Limited Gold Edition

Charles and Ray Eames enriched the collage like interior of their private home, the Eames House, with numerous objects and accessories that they brought back from their travels. for over seventy years the figure of a black wooden bird has stood in the centre of the living room – Carved from solid alder with a hand-gilded gold finish, the Limited Edition Gold Eames House bird has been crafted after an artefact of America folk art treasured by Charles and Ray. A truly iconic pice of design, this limited edition is produced by Vitra in a limited run of only 1000 pieces.

Charles Eames, born 1907 in St. Louis, Missouri, studied architecture at Washington University in St. Louis and designed a number of houses and churches in collaboration with various partners. His work caught the attention of Eliel Saarinen, who offered him a fellowship at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan in 1938. In 1940, he and Eero Saarinen won first prize in the ‘Industrial Design Competition for the 21 American Republics’ – also known as ‘Organic Design in Home Furnishings’ – organised by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Eames was appointed head of the industrial design department at Cranbrook the same year.

Ray Eames was born as Bernice Alexandra Kaiser in Sacramento, California, in 1912. She attended Bennett College in Millbrook, New York, and continued her studies in painting at the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts until 1937. During this year she exhibited her work in the first exhibition of the American Abstract Artists group at the Riverside Museum in New York. She matriculated at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1940.

Charles and Ray Eames married in 1941 and moved to Los Angeles, where together they began experimenting with techniques for the three-dimensional moulding of plywood. The aim was to create comfortable chairs that were affordable.

In addition to the Limited Gold Edition the bird is available in a classic black lacquered and walnut version .

The gold leaf edition of the Eames house bird is limited to 1000 pines. for this numbered edition of the classic design object the gold leaf is applied by hand and protected with a lacquer finish.

Charles & Ray Eames Archives