Lucia Eames: Seeing with the Heart Paperweight

Lucia Eames

Lucia

(1930-2014)
Her early years were spent with her father, designer Charles Eames, at the Cranbrook Academy of Art where he taught and subsequently met her beloved stepmother, Ray. Lucia’s talents were recognized at an early age when, at age 12, her wooden sculpture was published in the legendary Arts & Architecture magazine. In 1952, she graduated from Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts having enjoyed Walter Gropius as one of her professors.

Lucia spent much of her adult life raising five children near the Presidio Park in San Francisco. Humorously, when the family moved, it was to a place a mere block away. Both homes had treasured gardens, with the second overlooking the large national park with the Golden Gate Bridge on the horizon. It was in these two wooden homes that Lucia forged her style, her artistic approach and her commitment to an all-embracing creative spirit. Her last home and studio is currently under restoration as an important cultural site in the rolling hills of Sonoma County. In all the places where she lived, she was an active member of each community.

Charles and Ray Eames, prior to their deaths in 1978 and 1988 respectively, entrusted Lucia with the Eames legacy by leaving her the Eames Office as well as the Eames House in Pacific Palisades, California. Lucia ensured the preservation of the Eames House for future generations by establishing the Eames Foundation with her children for its care. Even today, a heart table which Lucia gifted to Ray is in the Eames House living room— exactly where Ray placed it. In the 1990s, to ensure the continued growth of her parents' legacy and the communication of their innovative teachings to new generations, Lucia asked her 5 children to lead the Eames Office. From that point on, she continued to create and expand her own body of work until shortly before her death in 2014.

Lucia Eames, designer, mother and beloved only child of American architect and designer Charles Eames, and beloved only step-daughter of designer and painter Ray Eames. In 1988, Lucia fulfilled Charles and Ray’s vision of gifting an important collection of the Eames Archives materials to the Library of Congress. In 2004, she established the Eames Foundation, which oversees the Eames House in Pacific Palisades, California.