MAGAZINE OF ART
May 1946
Charles Eames' Forward-Looking Furniture

Thomas C. Parker (director): MAGAZINE OF ART. Washington, DC: American Federation of the Arts, Vol. 39, No. 5, May 1946. Original edition. A very good to near-fine magazine with light wear to the covers and spine. Interior unmarked and clean. Cover: Photograph of a radio tower. View looking up into the mast from the inside, illustrating Serge Chermayeff's thesis, "Structure and the Esthetic Experience."

9 x 12 saddle-stitched magazine with 48 pages of editiorial content and advertising focused on the scene revolving around the American Federation of the Arts, circa 1946. An exceptional magazine with an immaculate pedigree -- check out the Editorial Board: Lloyd Goodrich, Chairman; Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Jacques Barzun, John I. H. Baur, Donald J. Bear, Serge Chermayeff, Agnes Rindge Claflin, Sumner McK. Crosby, Rene d'Harnoncourt, Guy Pene duBois, Talbot Hamlin, Bartlett H. Hayes, Jr., Joseph H. Hudnut, Horace H. F. Jayne, Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., A. Hyatt Mayor, Hermon Moore, Grace L. McCann Morley, Duncan Phillips, Daniel Catton Rich, E. P. Richardson, Gibert Seldes, James Thrall Soby, Franklin C. Watkins, and Carl Zigrosser. With these folks calling the shots, you know this magazine is worth reading.

This issue is notable for the 4-page article "Charles Eames' Forward-Looking Furniture," essentially a reprint of the Alfred Auerbach/MoMA Press Release for the Eames Show at the Barclay Hotel/Architectural League/MoMA in January - March 1946, with 5 photos by the Eames Office featuring early Evans prototypes of the molded plywood chairs we all know and love: DCW, DCM4, LCW, LCM chairs, as well as the the CTW1, CTW3 and CTM1 coffee tables and the unproduced Case Goods originally developed with Eero Saarinen for the 1941 MoMA Organic Design Competition.

Reading this article, you will understand the abrupt departure of Herbert Matter, Gregory Ain, Harry Bertoia et al. from the Eames office stable in September 1946. See John Neuhart, Marilyn Neuhart and Ray Eames: EAMES DESIGN: THE WORK OF THE OFFICE OF CHARLES AND RAY EAMES. NYC: Abrams 1989, page 69 for the understated, bloodless details. This article makes it sound like the plywood furniture was an immaculate conception, with Charles as the pround, single parent.

The Herman Miller furniture lines from 1948 has been called the most influential groups of furniture ever manufactured. This early reference to the Eames Plywood Furniture predates the Herman Miller manufacturing/distribution contracts from June 1946, and was current to the initial trade-only prototypical offerings by the Venice-based Evans Products Co. This article was a direct result of the first promotional push for the Eames Plywood furniture initiated by Alfred Auerbach Associates in December 1945. A very cool original reference item, if that's the kind of thing you're into.

Contents

  • John James Audobon, Artist, Donald A. Shelley
  • London Letter: Why Do the English Hate Picasso? John A. Thwaites
  • Charles Eames' Forward-Looking Furniture: "Eames' new furniture continues the long, fruitful experiments of modern chair designers who have tried to exploit the elastic qualities of various structural materials."
  • Sidney Gross, John D. Morse
  • Benton and Wood, Champions of Regionalism, H. W. Janson: "The core of the movement is not a positive artistic creed but rather the desire to substitute 'Americanism,' i.e., nationalism, for esthetic values of any kind."
  • The Position of French Painting, Rene Huyghe
  • Structure and the Esthetic Experience, Serge Chermayeff
  • The German Army Occupation and Folkwandering Art, Marvin C. Ross
  • A Letter from Oskar Kokoschka
  • New Books
  • Letters
  • Calendars

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