Classic: The Eames Hang-It-All

Cerentha Harris — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:45:31 +0000

What does the Los Angeles County Museum of Art do when they need a vintage Eames Hang it All for their California Design: Living in A Modern Way exhibition? Head straight to Daniel Ostroff, editor of EamesDesigns.com, Hollywood producer and design scholar, who sources not only a vintage piece but finds it in its original box. LACMA’s request didn’t come out of the blue - in the past year San Francisco’s MOMA, Yale and the Indianapolis Museum of Art have consulted with Ostroff for design scholarship.

“When LACMA announced that they were doing a California design exhibition which overlapped with my area of focus in studying applied art I looked for ways to assist the show’s curators – my friends Wendy Kaplan, Bobbye Tigerman and Bill Stern,” says Ostroff. “With regard to Eames designs I appreciated how selective they were. They had already sourced an Eames surfboard coffee table from Joel and Margaret Chen who have been generous supporters and donors to LACMA at a very high level.”

The Chen’s Collecting Eames show which we wrote about here on Lifework is another Pacific Standard Time exhibition – this time devoted entirely to Ray and Charles Eames’ extraordinary body of work. It was the Chen’s who had the Hang It All in their extensive collection. “Connecting Bobbye and Wendy and Bill with Joel Chen was easy – we all know one another.”

Chen let the LACMA curators choose and they picked the one in the original box from the first year of production. “It is the only precisely dated example because it comes with its original box postmarked first year of production,” says Ostroff. “Plus the Eames Office designed the box and label. This is “new old stock” as the original buyer never used it.”

Photo credit: Box images by Grant Taylor

News: Collecting Eames Exhibition Opens

Cerentha Harris — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 21:48:06 +0000

The official launch of JF Chen’s “Collecting Eames” exhibition attracted a crowd at the Los Angeles showroom on Sunday. As you can see from the shots there’s an absolute treasure trove of pieces here. Chen has collected over 450 pieces of Eames design – the largest gathering of their pieces ever shown. “It was an almost overwhelming historical display,” said Richard Munsey, Herman Miller’s West Coast A+D Sales Director. ”I actually had goose bumps walking through the exhibit and was amazed to see pieces that I never knew still existed. And it was thoughtfully and artfully displayed.”

I was given a sneak preview the week before with curator Daniel Ostroff. Ostroff is also the editor of the recently launched EamesDesigns.com – an encyclopedic look at the great wide design world of Ray and Charles from their toys and chairs to their films and TV appearances. “We really want to encourage people to contribute to the site,” says Ostroff. “And one way they can do that is if they buy any of the pieces in this ‘Collecting Eames’ show and it’s documented on the site we will attribute the piece to their personal collection or ‘private collection’.” Ostroff is hoping that by doing this museum’s exhibitions in the future will have an easier time tracking down significant pieces.

If you can’t make it to the show there is a book on the exhibition Collecting Eames, The JF Chen Collection, that will be out this month. Contact Fiona for details on purchasing the book – Fiona@jfchen.com

Photos: Stefanie Keenan

Herman Miller blog: Lifework » jf chen

Classic: The Eames Hang-It-All

News: Collecting Eames Exhibition Opens