Ray’s Colorful World
A Ray Eames biography would be better expressed through pictures—with the soft, delicate arcs of charcoal from her early sketches, and the bold blocks of yellow, blue, and red of her paintings.
Throughout her life, Ray used pictures, and later, objects, as a means of communication and expression. A study of correspondence between Charles and Ray hints at their reliance on a transcendent, pictographic language. It was as if their ideas were too brilliant and beautiful to capture in the strict confines of a word or phrase, so pictures became their favored form of ideation.
It’s clear that color was the defining parlance of Ray’s unique visual language. Influenced by her study with Expressionist painter Hans Hofmann, Ray’s love of bold, primary color is evident in every facet of her life and work—the exterior panels of the Pacific Palisades home she shared with Charles, her Arts and Architecture magazine covers, and her dress designs and textile patterns.
Ray’s visual language colored her design partnerships with Charles; her aesthetic imprint is unmistakable on collaborations like the Eames Wire Base Low Table. It’s now being offered for a limited time in a Select Edition, in three Ray-inspired colors—cobalt blue, red-orange, and yellow-gold.