an angst ridden place

John Neuhart, a former employee of Charles and Ray Eames, and his wife Marilyn, are auctioning their Eames collection next Thursday, April 8th, at the Wright Auction House in Chicago.

More likely than not, if you're in the market, you can score a chair.

More interestingly, you can score a rare piece of industrial design.



Like a pair of the plywood splints that the Eames designed and manufactured for the US Government during WWII, the production of which provided the seed money for their later success.



I have my eye on the trim tab for a Vultee BT-13 airplane in lacquered spruce and enameled aluminum. I don't know why, but I think it's lovely.



Also appealing, if you have $15K (or more) to blow on a dollhouse, is a scale model of the Eames' Office where John Neuhart was employed:

This scale model, constructed on a one-quarter inch to one-foot scale, is a replica of the Eames Office at the time of Charles Eames death in August of 1978. Painstakingly constructed over nearly a decade John Neuhart, with the assistance of Marilyn Neuhart, aimed to recreate the office with precision. With a demountable roof and cross beams the model reveals the 10,000 square foot interior equipped with appropriately-scaled furniture, the equipment and tools of the Eames Design Office, as well as the graphic displays decorating the walls at that time. Signed with applied studio label to corner.

While you're shopping, give a listen to the audio interviews with the Neuharts that the auction house has also posted. (The first of these provided my title.) It seems the Eames' were terrors to work for. The image archive is pretty captivating too.