Christmas Card with Bird’s-Eye View of St. Louis
Charles affectionately draws his daughter, Lucia, between him and his first wife, Catherine Woermann—on the corner of Rosedale and Pershing Streets—within a whimsical aerial map of St. Louis sent out to family and friends as a Christmas greeting. Among the city’s landmarks, including its outdoor “Muny” (short for municipal) opera, art museums, and zoo, Charles marks the location of the architecture firm he operated with partners Charles Gray and Walter Pauley, and draws a path “to grandfather’s house” along Skinker Street, circumnavigating “the very very vicious circle” that bares its teeth at the intersection of Lindell Boulevard. These personal monuments add warmth to the artist’s rather skillful drawing, which clearly reveals his technical training.
- Artifact
- A.2019.2.005
- Material
- Printmaking
- Artist / Designer
- Charles Eames
- Dimensions
- 13 ¾ × 18 ¾ in
- 34.9 × 47.6 cm
- Date
- 1931
Charles created celebratory Christmas cards over the years, using traditional images such as wreaths, churches, family homes and pets, reindeer, and this illustrated, hand-drawn overview of the city of St. Louis. He rendered himself (with first wife, Catherine, and daughter, Lucia) in the lower left, at the intersection of Rosedale and Pershing Streets. Already a capable technical draftsman at this time, Charles employed techniques such as a vanishing point, a strong horizon line, and a compass to orientate the holiday viewer who was likely to be a friend or family member. The very skillfully rendered yet whimsical map is centered around St. Louis’s noted Forest Park, with its outdoor “Muny” opera, art museums, and zoo, and also features landmark streets, directions to Grandfather’s house, and Charles’s firm of Gray, Eames, and Pauley, among other important personal references. Washington University is only partially depicted in the lower left, but not labeled or otherwise called out (which was perhaps a loose reference to Charles’s early dismissal from the school after advocating for Frank Lloyd Wright).
Rachael Blackburn Cozad