How Charles Eames Proposed to Ray Eames: His Disarming 1941 Handwritten Love Letter

A modernist fairy tale of true partnership.

Charles Eames (June 17, 1907–August 21, 1978) — pioneer of the modernist aesthetic, endlessly quotable sage of design, rare interviewee, legendary visualizer of the scale of the universe — was also one half of one of the most celebrated couples in creative history, the architect/painter powerhouse he formed together with his wife, the painter and reconstructionist Ray Eames. And while extraordinary love letters generally have an ineffable and enduring appeal, there’s something particularly mesmerizing about epistles exchanged by two people who are partners in every possible sense of the word and whose romantic relationship is also a creative collaboration.

Joining these ranks of love letters, like those between Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, and Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin, are the Eameses, who fell in love at the legendary Cranbrook Academy and remained together until Charles’s death nearly four decades later.

In this disarming love letter — a true testament to the modernist ethos of piercing honesty, exquisite simplicity, and elegant imperfection — Charles proposes to Ray:

Letter from Charles to Ray Eames, 1941 (Library of Congress)

Dear Miss Kaiser,

I am 34 (almost) years old, singel (again) and broke. I love you very much and would like to marry you very very soon.* I cannot promise to support us very well. — but if given the chance I will shure in hell try —

*soon means very soon.

What is the size of this finger??

as soon as I get to that hospital I will write “reams” well little ones.

love xxxxxxxxxx

Charlie

Ray, of course, said “yes.” Fourteen years into their marriage, the romantic spark was still very much ablaze as Ray sent Charles this charming collage of a love letter:

Letter from Ray to Charles Eames, 1955 (Library of Congress)

Complement with the fantastic exhibition-in-a-book Eames: Beautiful Details (public library), inspired by Charles’s signature immersive slideshows.

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Design in a Nutshell: One-Minute Animated Primers on Six Major Creative Movements

From Gothic Revival to Postmodernism, or how Bauhaus ushered in the age of minimalism.

From the fine folks at Open University — who have previously brought us delightful 60-second animated primers on philosophy’s famous thought experiments and the world’s major theories of religion — comes Design in a Nutshell, a lovely six-part series of their signature animated primers on six major design movements.

Gothic Revival gave us many of the ideas that changed architecture, including the magnificent vaulted ceilings of European cathedrals, and without it Lewis Carroll may never have given us Alice in Wonderland:

The Arts and Crafts movement emerged as a rebellion to the negative impact of mass-production and the Industrial Revolution, and its romantic ideals still reverberate today:

Bauhaus, one of the 100 ideas that changed graphic design, revolutionized design education by introducing a cross-disciplinary curriculum and embraced the intersection of innovation and inspiration:

Modernism emerged from a disillusionment with history after the World War and spanned every corner of creative expression, from art (e.g., Agnes Martin) to music (e.g., John Cage) to design (e.g., Charles and Ray Eames), becoming the single most influential creative movement of the 20th century:

After The Great Depression erased consumer demand, American industrial design set to out rebuild the world of tomorrow and reignite people’s appreciation for objects by making things that previously didn’t need to appear attractive now sleek and desirable, effectively bridging form and function and ushering in The Century of the Self:

Postmodernism criticized modernism for having failed at reinvigorating society and set out to transform culture politically, philosophically, and creatively, pushing society to question why things are the way they are:

Pair with the best design books of 2012.

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Taschen’s Jazz: An Illustrated Portrait of New York in the Roaring Twenties

Band battles, brass classics, Cotton Club etiquette, and how to do the “double roll” like a pro.

“Jazz is the music of the body,” Anaïs Nin wrote in her diary, “…and the mystery of the withheld theme, known to jazz musicians alone, is like the mystery of our secret life.” From the fine folks of Taschen (♥) — who have given us such visual gems as the world’s best infographics, the best illustrations from 130 years of Brothers Grimm, Harry Benson’s luminous photos of The Beatles, and the history of menu design — comes Jazz. New York in the Roaring Twenties (public library), a remarkable time-capsule of Gotham’s swinging golden age by music journalist Hans-Jürgen Schaal, edited and gloriously illustrated by German graphic designer, illustrator, and book artist Robert Nippoldt. The lavish large-format volume, which comes with a CD compilation of the era’s most celebrated songs, covers iconic venues like the Cotton Club and the Roseland Ballroom, legendary recording sessions, and the epic “band battles” that dominated the club scene, among other curious and lesser-known facets of the Roaring Twenties.

Also included are illustrated micro-biographies of twenty-four of the era’s greatest icons, alongside little-known and often amusing anecdotes.

But perhaps most delightful of all are the infographic-inspired maps and morphologies of the jazz scene and its geography, technology, and human topography:

Complement Jazz. New York in the Roaring Twenties with Herman Leonard’s rare portraits of jazz icons, W. Eugene Smith’s ambitious Jazz Loft Project, and William Gottlieb’s magnificent photos of jazz greats.

Images courtesy Taschen

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Marguerite Duras on Immortality, Life & the Art of Seeing, Illustrated

“The art of seeing has to be learned.”

“Fiction is a lie, and good fiction is the truth inside the lie,” Stephen King proclaimed, and a beacon of this conviction is The Lover (public library) — a short and stirring 1984 autobiographical novel by Marguerite Duras, with a cover as iconic as the book itself, designed by the inimitable Louise Fili.

For this latest installment in the Brain Pickings artist series, designer and artist Kerri Augenstein has illustrated some of my marginalia from this masterpiece, including a poetic meditation on the recently explored question of immortality, in the style of her magnificent Dumb Dots Figure Studies series. Each is in reality a 10-foot drawing, so the screen does it little justice, but their elegant beauty still mesmerizes:

It’s while it’s being lived that life is immortal, while it’s still alive. Immortality is not a matter of more or less time, it’s not really a question of immortality but of something else that remains unknown. It’s as untrue to say it’s without beginning or end as to say it begins and ends with the life of the spirit, since it partakes both of the spirit and of the pursuit of the void.

The art of seeing has to be learned.

Both pieces are available on Etsy as limited-edition 5.5″ x 9.5″ prints in Kerri’s Etsy shop. You can find out about the philosophy behind her Figure Studies series here.

The Lover is a sublime and timeless read that, though semi-fictional, offers keen insight into the complex machinery of love on par with these 5 essential books on the art and science of love.

Previous artist series have included Susan Sontag on art and on love illustrated by Wendy MacNaughton, Anaïs Nin on love and more love illustrated by Debbie Millman, Salvador Dalí’s creative credo illustrated by Moly Crabapple, and Anaïs Nin on life illustrated by Lisa Congdon.

Donating = Loving

Bringing you (ad-free) Brain Pickings takes hundreds of hours each month. If you find any joy and stimulation here, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner:

♥ $7 / month♥ $3 / month♥ $10 / month♥ $25 / month

You can also become a one-time patron with a single donation in any amount:

Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s what to expect. Like? Sign up.