Herman Miller Eames Chair And Ottoman

With a vast inventory of beautiful furniture at 1stDibs, we’ve got just the herman miller eames chair and ottoman you’re looking for. Frequently made of animal skin, leather and wood, every herman miller eames chair and ottoman was constructed with great care. Whether you’re looking for an older or newer herman miller eames chair and ottoman, there are earlier versions available from the 20th Century and newer variations made as recently as the 21st Century. Each herman miller eames chair and ottoman bearing Mid-Century Modern or Modern hallmarks is very popular. Many designers have produced at least one well-made herman miller eames chair and ottoman over the years, but those crafted by Charles and Ray Eames, Herman Miller and Charles Eames are often thought to be among the most beautiful.

A herman miller eames chair and ottoman can differ in price owing to various characteristics — the average selling price 1stDibs is $8,850, while the lowest priced sells for $2,150 and the highest can go for as much as $15,000.

Charles Eames and Ray Eames were the embodiment of the inventiveness, energy and optimism at the heart of mid-century modern American design, and have been recognized as the most influential designers of the 20th century.

As furniture designers, filmmakers, artists, textile and graphic designers and even toy and puzzle makers, the Eameses were a visionary and effective force for the notion that design should be an agent of positive change. They are the happy, ever-curious, ever-adventurous faces of modernism.

Charles studied architecture and industrial design. Ray (née Beatrice Alexandra Kaiser) was an artist, who studied under the abstract expressionist Hans Hofmann. They met in 1940 at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in suburban Detroit (where Charles also met his frequent collaborator Eero Saarinen and the artist and designer Harry Bertoia) and married the next year.

His technical skills and her artistic flair were wonderfully complementary. They moved to Los Angeles in 1941, where Charles worked on set design for MGM. In the evenings at their apartment, they experimented with molded plywood using a handmade heat-and-pressurization device they called the “Kazam!” machine. The next year, they won a contract from the U.S. Navy for lightweight plywood leg splints for wounded servicemen — they are coveted collectibles today; more so those that Ray used to make sculptures.

The Navy contract allowed Charles to open a professional studio, and the attention-grabbing plywood furniture the firm produced prompted George Nelson, the director of design of the furniture-maker Herman Miller Inc., to enlist Charles and (by association, if not by contract) Ray in 1946. Some of the first Eames items to emerge from Herman Miller are now classics: the LCW, or Lounge Chair Wood, and the DCM, or Dining Chair Metal, supported by tubular steel.

The Eameses eagerly embraced new technology and materials, and one of their peculiar talents was to imbue their supremely modern design with references to folk traditions. Their Wire chair group of the 1950s, for example, was inspired by basket weaving techniques. The populist notion of “good design for all” drove their molded fiberglass chair series that same decade, and also produced the organic-form, ever-delightful La Chaise. In 1956 the Eames lounge chair and ottoman appeared — the supremely comfortable plywood-base-and-leather-upholstery creation that will likely live in homes as long as there are people with good taste and sense.

Charles Eames once said, “The role of the designer is that of a very good, thoughtful host anticipating the needs of his guests.” For very good collectors and thoughtful interior designers, a piece of design by the Eameses, the closer produced to original conception the better, is almost de rigueur — for its beauty and comfort, and not least as a tribute to the creative legacy and enduring influence of Charles and Ray Eames.

The lounge chair is known to all for its comfort and familiar form, but its history is slightly more ambiguous. While there are rare armchairs dating back as far as the 17th century, some believe that origins of the first official “lounge chair” are tied to Hungarian modernist designer-architect Marcel Breuer. While Breuer wasn’t exactly reinventing the wheel when he introduced the Wassily lounge chair in 1925, his recliner was indeed revolutionary for its integration of bent tubular steel.

Officially, a lounge chair is simply defined as a “comfortable armchair,” which allows for the shape and material of the furnishings to be extremely diverse. Whether or not chaise longues make the cut for this category is a matter of frequent debate.

The Eames lounge chair, on the other hand, has come to define somewhat of a universal perception of what a lounge chair can be. Introduced in 1956, the chair (and its partner in cozy, the ottoman) quickly became staples in television shows, prestigious office buildings and gorgeous living rooms. Venerable American designers Charles and Ray Eames intended for it to be the peak of luxury, which they knew meant taking furniture to the next level of style and comfort. Their chair inspired many modern interpretations of the lounge — as well as numerous copies.

On 1stDibs, find a broad range of lounge chairs that includes everything from antique Victorian-era seating to vintage mid-century modern lounge-chair options by craftsmen such as Hans Wegner to contemporary choices from today’s innovative designers.