Vitra Miniature Plywood Elephant Natural by Charles & Ray Eames

At just over 16 inches tall, the stackable, climbable — at least for little ones — Eames Elephant is another work from Charles and Ray Eames (1907–78; 1912–88) that symbolized their democratic belief that good designs should be inexpensive and available to everyone. After all, the couple liked to say they aimed “to make the best for the most for the least."

When the Eameses took to improving upon the problematic metal splints employed during World War II, plywood was cheap but available only in sheets. In their California apartment, the newly married Cranbrook Academy of Art alumni devised the "Kazam! Machine," an innovative homemade apparatus for heat-bonding layers of plywood.

Comprising wood veneers bonded together with a resin glue, the lightweight but sturdy, molded plywood splints conformed to the human leg and offered support in a way that metal couldn’t. The Eameses applied this inexpensive approach to their furniture-making as well as to the less-heralded toys they designed. “Toys and games are the prelude to serious ideas,” said Charles.

The sculptural, two-piece plywood Eames Elephant exemplified the Eameses’ diverse influences and enterprising ethos. The pair believed in making durable and interesting products for kids, too — a mid-1940s contract with Evans Products Company yielded seating and tables for children, a precursor to their popular plywood furniture for adults. While their Elephant was whimsical and would have appealed to any child’s innate curiosity, it was difficult to make. Technical challenges in 1945 prevented mass production of the piece, but today, both Vitra and Herman Miller manufacture the Eames Elephant.

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 (1907–78) studied architecture and industrial design. Ray (née Beatrice Alexandra Kaiser, 1912–88) was an artist, who studied under the Abstract Expressionist painter Hans Hofmann. They met in 1940 at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in suburban Detroit (the legendary institution 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 collection of original Eames furniture on 1stDibs includes chairs, tables, case pieces and other items.