Eames Fiberglass Armchair with Steinberg Cat

Launched in 1950, the Eames Shell Chairs were the world's first industrially mass-produced chairs with the seat and backrest formed from a single plastic shell. Resting on a variety of different bases, the curved organic shells offer a sensation of free-floating lightness unlike anything experienced before.

Shortly after Charles and Ray Eames had developed the Shell Chairs, the artist and architect Saul Steinberg came to visit their office in Los Angeles at 901 Washington Boulevard. A good friend of Charles and Ray, Steinberg had already made a name for himself with his humorous and occasionally provocative painted illustrations of people and animals – especially cats – with which he repeatedly traversed the boundaries of traditional media.

During his visit to the Eames Office, Steinberg spontaneously picked up a paintbrush and drew a number of lively cartoons – on furniture, floors and walls of the studio. Steinberg was particularly taken with the newly designed Shell Chairs and painted flowing lines continuing from one chair to next. A small, imaginative cosmos of personalities and animals took shape within the Eames Office premises, and Charles and Ray Eames and Eames Offices employees enthusiastically documented the spectacle with a series of photos.

One of the painted figures was a sleeping cat: Steinberg had it take a nap in one of the armchair shells. Relaxed and with closed eyes, it seems to have found the perfect spot to rest and remain inseparably united with the chair.

From this universe of expressive drawings, only two vintage specimens still exist today: the cat on the armchair shell and part of a female nude, also on an armchair shell. The chair with the cat is owned by the Eames Office and the Eames family, the chair with the female nude is on permanent loan from the Eames Office and the Eames family to the Vitra Design Museum. Both chairs are regularly loaned for exhibitions around the world.

In collaboration with the Eames Office and Herman Miller, Vitra is now producing a limited edition of 500 pieces of the Eames Fiberglass Armchair with Steinberg Cat. For this purpose, a specialised firm scanned the original at the Eames Institute and generated a 3D file. The data was used to create an exact template, which makes it possible to apply Steinberg's drawing to the fibreglass shell as faithfully as possible. This work is done by hand by an artist for each individual shell, using paint which has also been painstakingly evaluated to be as close as possible to the original. Once the cat drawing has been applied, the shells are hand-numbered, sealed with a protective lacquer and given a special label.

The Eames Fiberglass Armchair with Steinberg Cat is manufactured in Germany and limited to 500 pieces – with 300 available from Vitra in Europe and 200 from Herman Miller for the rest of the world.

The Steinberg Cat is used with permission of the Steinberg Foundation.