You should definitely watch Eames: the architect and the painter, the brilliant documentary about Charles and Ray Eames. It’s available online at PBS video (America only but there are ways round that…)
I watched it this morning, really interesting. I knew they were very prolific in many fields of design, but generally it’s hard to see any of their work other than furniture and architecture. So it was great to see more of their films and photography. Oh and the Eames studio itself which is quite something to behold!
It was also fascinating and quite sad at times getting a better view of the personal lives of Charles and Ray. Charles was very charismatic and undoubtably a genius, but was also very dominating and stubborn, and not a good husband to Ray. Who herself was possibly not always doing exactly what she wanted, and stuck with Charles despite his bad behaviour. I wonder why there were so many collaborative creative couples in Mid-Century modern design; Charles and Ray, Alvin and Elaine Lustig, Robin and Lucienne Day as well as Saul Bass and his wife Elaine who assisted his design for film titles. Something to ponder…
Thanks to Scott Lindberg (@sllabstudios) for tweeting about the film being online, I needed to watch it for my dissertation. Check out his Etsy if you want to buy some Mid-Century design artefacts; http://www.etsy.com/shop/newdocuments.
Watch Eames: the architect and the painter - video.pbs.org/video/2178281391#
Looking forward to checking this out.
