Charles and Ray Eames in India

Eames House interior, Los Angeles, 1944 (photograph by Timothy Street-Porter, © Eames Office, LLC)

A photograph of the living room of the Eames house in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles has proven rather puzzling to historians of design. It depicts the famous Case Study House as full of exotic collectibles. Hopi kachina dolls, seashells, craft objects, silk textiles from Nepal and Thailand, and elaborately patterned rugs from Mexico and India all crowd and assault their modernist frame. Beatriz Colomina has commented on this “kaleidoscopic excess of objects” in the Eames house, and attributed it to Ray in particular, described elsewhere as a “sublime pack rat” who saved and collected everything.

—Saloni Mathur’s excellent article in Art Journal.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 22nd, 2011 at 8:00 am. It is filed under Creative Culture, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.