Comments by Jim Leach, NEH Chairman, at screening of documentary Charles & Ray Eames: The Architect and the Painter

Thank you, Peggy, for hosting a screening of this extraordinary documentary which received a substantial development and production grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.  Produced by Jason Cohn and Bill Jersey, it is the story of a husband and wife, their work and their life together.  But it is much more.  It is also the story of creativity, modernist aesthetics, and the American way of life.

The Eames partnership ennobled twentieth-century American design.  Charles and Ray innovated with a sense for America but also a thorough knowledge of aesthetics from abroad.   Their now famous Bauhaus-influenced home had a Mondrian-like exterior wall.   Charles’s much pictured, now lost, sculptural contraption reflected Calder-esque engineering whimsy with a kafka-esque name: “The Solar Do-Nothing Machine.” His often articulated pursuit of “the most for the least” complements Mies Van Der Rohe’s observation that “less is more.”

There may be validity to the claims that less is more and that the most may be the least, but market reality often suggests that less and even the least when well designed and crafted may also be expensive.  So while democratization of product distribution is a modernist theme, many Americans still opt for less revolutionary, “pillowy,” often cheaper, alternatives. 

Charles Eames clearly appreciated and borrowed from Ray’s artistic sensibilities, but he considered their joint work not to be art because their design efforts revolved around solving problems.  The art aesthetic was not an end in itself but a component of resolving how increasingly large bodies could fit into and be held in place by minimalist seating structures utilizing, among other things, military-tested materials. 

Fashion can imply a fleeting moment in time, but as this new century has commenced it appears that Charles and Ray Eames’ modernist designs have multi-generational appeal.  In the pantheon of design they have carved out a venerated niche.

NEH is honored to play a role in helping facilitate this revealing documentary of two aesthetic soul mates whose yin-yang partnership model embellished American living with minimalist balance and harmony.  

Thanks to our co-funders and again to the National Gallery for its gracious offer to host this screening.