Eames: The Architect & The Painter Page #6

itwas two brothers.

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They were a married couple,

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while at the same time,

they were partners

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in whatever

their design effortwas.

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OPPEWALL:
Ray felt, I think,

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deeply enraged

and hurt, on occasion,

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when itwas assumed that it was

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actually just Charles's business

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and it was the office

of Charles Eames,

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not the office

of Charles and Ray Eames.

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It iwas/i Charles

who was in charge,

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but the body of work

would not have been the same

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without Ray's contributions,

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and how you separate that out,

I don't know.

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FRANCO:
If the public saw Ray

as little more

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than the devoted wife

supporting her husband,

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Charles saw a talented artist

who had participated

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in the birth of abstract art

in America.

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Her mentor was the German

abstract expressionist

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Hans Hofmann.

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PERL:
Hofmann is one

of the great catalytic figures

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in American art.

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He starts a school

in New York City in '33

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with at times no more than

a dozen or two students.

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They, together, are the seed

out of which

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the new American art

really grows.

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He was getting ideas from people

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like Mondrian, Paul Klee,

Kandinsky,

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but he was communicating them

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not as textbook learning, but as

this incredibly visceral

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sensation.

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And I have talked to people

who remember him

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walking into the studio and

looking at a drawing of theirs

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and tearing it down the middle

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and then taking the two parts

and moving them.

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And then suddenly something

that had been very static

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was dynamic.

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KIRKHAM:
So I think it's there

that Ray learned

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some, at least, of this

wonderful capacity that she had

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for collaging,

forjuxtaposition.

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She could move things around

very, very easily

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and beautifully and find form,

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and find form

in relation to otherform.

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SUSSMAN:
Ray knew what was art

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and whatwas not.

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And Charles depended

on her aesthetic genius.

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OPPEWALL:
And she would put

objects on shoots

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that would just bring

the whole thing to life.

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By putting the stack

of black wire chairs

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naked with the wooden bird

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with the little wire legs,

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gave you a very different

feeling about those chairs.

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ASHBY:
Charles could not deal

with the idea

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that any of the furniture

would have color on it.

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If you put a palette of colors

in front of him,

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they just... like he couldn't

handle it.

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It just went

over his head.

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He deferred to her completely

on color sense.

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BEEBE:
She saw everything

as a painting.

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She had these enormous eyes

that were...

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they were open like this

all the time.

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And I think Charles

was very dependent on that.

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SUSSMAN:
You could just

hear him say,

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"Ra-ay!"

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Which meant, "Come and help!"

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FRANCO:
At the Library

of Congress,

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Ray's letters

to a traveling Charles

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show her fastidious attention

to every detail

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of their life and work.

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MAN:
When she writes to Charles

in Paris

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and she's talking about

the slides that he's just taken,

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and she has this sketch

showing how she

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and Sandro and Don Albinson

have changed the chair.

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And then she's going on

about the films,

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and she's going on

about Elmer Bernstein.

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Then she tells him all

the places to shop in Paris

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and where to get his shoes

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and where to get her gloves

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and whatthe stitching

should be like on the gloves

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and how this perfume

by Balmain is $55 an ounce here,

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but it's cheaper in Paris,

"and please get it for me."

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SELIGSOHN:
It's as if

they were one individual

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with two different

special areas,

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and a lot of itwas unspoken,

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just eye... eye contact.

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A nodding of something...

an idea

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thatthey both would agree on.

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PEATROSS:
So that's how

you begin to separate

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their artistic personalities

and their contributions.

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But the separating them

isn't the important part.

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It's what they created together.

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That's why it's so good.

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FRANCO:
Perhaps the greatest

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