20 Facts About Ray Eames

Ray-Bernice Alexandra Kaiser Eames was an American artist and designer who worked in a variety of media.

The Ray Eames Office is most famous for its furniture, which is still being produced.

Ray Eames was born in Sacramento, California, to Alexander and Edna Burr Kaiser and had an older brother named Maurice.

Ray Eames's mother was a housewife, and her father managed the vaudeville Empress Theater, in Sacramento, until 1920.

Ray Eames then became an insurance salesman, later owning a downtown office to better support his family.

Ray Eames's parents taught her to value both the natural world and objects that induce joy, which later inspired her inventions in furniture design and toys.

Ray Eames's elder sister died a few months after she was born, and her parents lived in fear that they would lose her, too.

Ray Eames was a member of the Art Association, the Big Sister Club, and the decorating committee for the senior dance.

In 1933, Ray Eames graduated from the May Friend Bennett Women's College, in Millbrook, New York, and moved to New York City to study Abstract Expressionist painting with Duble's mentor, Hans Hofmann.

Ray Eames became a key figure in the New York art scene and developed friendships with painters Lee Krasner and Mercedes Matter, both important figures in Abstract Expressionism.

Ray Eames took his advice and, once at Cranbrook, learned a variety of arts, moving beyond painting as her sole focus.

Also at Cranbrook, Kaiser met her husband-to-be, Charles Ray Eames, who headed the school's industrial design department.

The Ray Eames Office designed a few other architectural works, many of which remained unrealized.

Ray Eames contributed to the 1948 Eames furniture advertisements for Herman Miller.

Ray Eames worked on graphics for advertising, magazine covers, posters, timelines, game boards, invitations, and business cards.

Between 1943 and 1978, the Ray Eames Office produced numerous furniture designs that were commercially manufactured, many with plywood.

Charles and Ray created these films for the Eames Office:.

Ray Eames organized and donated approximately 1.5 million two-dimensional objects to the Library of Congress for archival safekeeping.

Ray Eames died in Cedars Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles, California, on August 21,1988,10 years to the day after Charles.

Ray' s contributions to the work of the Eames Office were severely overlooked during her lifetime, with Ray often portrayed as an insignificant part of the Office.