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"DCW" Side Chair

Charles Eames American
1946
Not on view
The husband-and-wife team of Charles and Ray Eames, who collaborated in the design of hundreds of chairs, tables, and other pieces of furniture that combined mass production with a high sense of style and comfort, were among the most innovative American designers of the mid-twentieth century. Their most significant innovation was bending lengths of plywood in two planes. In contrast to Alvar Aalto's bending a flat sheet of plywood into one or more curves, the Eames were able to mold a single sheet of plywood in different directions, on different planes, at the same time. Other innovations include rubber shock mounts that give a chair its resiliency and newly developed glues that were used to attach the mounts to the back and seat so that the joints were not visible on the front surface.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: "DCW" Side Chair
  • Artist: Charles Eames (American, St. Louis, Missouri 1907–1978 St. Louis, Missouri)
  • Date: 1946
  • Medium: Birch plywood, ponyskin, rubber mounts
  • Dimensions: 28 3/4 × 19 1/4 × 20 in. (73 × 48.9 × 50.8 cm)
  • Classification: Furniture
  • Credit Line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. I. Wistar Morris, III, 1984
  • Object Number: 1984.556
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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