“High Tea” Postcard

Although the fiberglass chair made its initial appearance at the Museum of Modern Art, Ray and Charles Eames didn’t create these chairs to be put on pedestals, they aimed to design a low-cost, high-value design for everyone. The image echoes something Charles Eames once said while developing another chair: “Whatever it is, it’s something that has been done really not just for a specific client anymore, but for the people that work in the factory with us day by day⁠—who would flop down in one at the end of a hard day⁠—and from whom we would really get our feedback, our clues.”

This promotional postcard created for Herman Miller illustrates these egalitarian impulses. The vignette⁠⁠—most likely staged within the photo studio at 901 Washington⁠⁠—features a worker taking his lunch break at an Eames DTM table while seated in one of their latest designs, the molded plastic DSS chair. The back of the card ironically refers to his meal as “high tea,” while the disassembled carton in which the chairs presumably just arrived is addressed to “Mr. & Mrs. Frank Porley, 17 Main Street, Anytown, U.S.A.”

Gift of Llisa Demetrios