Exhibit Illustrates Saul Steinberg, Eames’ Friendship
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MILAN — For years, Charles and Ray Eames’ granddaughter had admired these “handsome and official” diplomas illustrator Saul Steinberg created for her grandfather. As an adult, Llisa Demetrios, the Eameses youngest granddaughter and chief curator of The Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity, one day realized that it was full of doodles, designed as a cheeky joke aimed at Charles, who had studied architecture but did not finish his degree.
“As I got older and looked more closely, I realized that the handwriting didn’t actually say any words — which made me laugh,” she said in an interview with WWD, just after debuting the online exhibition “Steinberg Meets the Eameses,” which opened earlier this month.
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In and around their contemporary Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, home and office in Venice, the power design couple frequently welcomed friends and colleagues into their convivial family atmosphere. One of those friends was Romanian American illustrator Steinberg, known for his evocative illustrations that graced the covers of fashion magazines like Harper’s Bazaar and The New Yorker. He is most famously remembered for his “View of the World From Ninth Avenue,” the March 29, 1976, cover of The New Yorker.
Among the many conversations and creations that emerged from that summer in 1950 were the Eames Fiberglass Armchair with Steinberg Cat by Vitra and Herman Miller. The Eames Institute retains two original Steinberg painted chairs — including the chair with cat — in the Eames Collection, which has come to the fore in the exhibit and coincides with its reproduction and sale of the iconic models.
“With the launch by Herman Miller and Vitra of a limited edition of the Eames chair with the Steinberg cat, it felt like a perfect time to celebrate when Steinberg met my grandparents with highlights like that chair which is in the collection at the Eames Institute today,” said Demetrios, who has been a bronze sculptor for more than 20 years.
Herman Miller is the sole authorized manufacturer of furniture designs by Charles & Ray Eames for all markets except Europe and the Middle East. Vitra is the sole authorized manufacturer of furniture designs by Charles & Ray Eames for markets in Europe and the Middle East. Famous for pushing the boundaries of design and materials like plywood and fiberglass, with iconic designs like the Eames Lounge chair for Herman Miller and the Galaxy lamp, the Eameses designs endure as modern marvels to this day.
In Europe, the Eameses continue to reverberate throughout the design world. During Design Week in Milan, it was announced that their work would serve as the genesis of the Cassina Lighting Collection, which was inspired the prototype of Galaxy, an aluminum pendant lamp designed by the Eameses and which was first shown at Detroit’s “An Exhibition for Modern Living” in 1949.
At the Eames Institute, the exhibit begins with the story of a botched Hollywood assignment that led Steinberg to the West Coast. In 1950, Steinberg traveled to Los Angeles with his wife, the artist Hedda Sterne, for an unusual, but potentially promising assignment: to play a “painting body double” in an upcoming MGM production.
“I was hired — or, rather, my hand was hired — to play the hand of Gene Kelly drawing and painting in ‘An American in Paris,’” he later recounted in the catalogue of a career-spanning exhibition. The project, however, didn’t go quite as planned, noted Steinberg scholar and curator Francesca Pellicciari in an essay.
Pellicciari was also the co-curator of the career-spanning 2021 exhibit “Saul Steinberg: Milan, New York” at the Triennale di Milano.
“But Hollywood was not for me,” wrote Steinberg. “I quarreled with the producer and resigned after one day or less.” Despite leaving the production, he committed to staying in L.A. for the remaining two months of the summer, in which he encountered key proponents of the L.A. émigré zeitgeist of the time — Russian composer Igor Stravinsky and Austrian-born filmmaker Billy Wilder — members of the Eames intimate circle of friends.
The exhibition also details the now-iconic works that resulted from a collaborative day spent at the Eames Office at 901 Washington Boulevard in Venice, California. It also includes photographs taken by Eames of Steinberg drawings being projected onto Hedda Sterne and Ray Eames. The Steinberg Nude also features prominently, demonstrating how Steinberg energized several pieces of Eames furniture by doodling on their bare surfaces. Steinberg also depicted the nude woman by drawing her relaxing on a bathtub.
“The intersection of Steinberg’s ideas and how they overlapped with the designs of my grandparents is incredible and beautiful. As a grandchild, I felt immersed in a world of boundless curiosity when I visited Ray and Charles’ office in Venice, California. Some of my favorites were the pieces of Steinberg furniture, and the fake diplomas for Charles,” shared Demetrios, who spearheads the Eames institute that has hosted eight exhibits, which most recently included “Tables! Tables! Tables!” this past spring that shined a light on the Eameses contributions outside of the facet of chairs.
The exhibit will be showcased online indefinitely at Eamesinstitute.org.
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