Vitra presents limited edition Eames chair with Saul Steinberg’s cat

Auction is on 14 June 2023 6PM ECT for the limited edition Vitra Eames chair featuring Steinberg’s original cat drawing

Vitra eames chair with steinberg cat
(Image credit: Courtesy Vitra)

When the Eames chair was launched in 1950, it was the world’s first industrially mass-produced chair, made of a plastic shell resting on a series of different bases. Romanian-American artist Saul Steinberg (1914 – 1999) famously tinkered with the Eames chair: having visited his friends Ray and Charles Eames at their LA office, he applied some of his signature line drawings to the studio’s walls, floors and furniture. The sinuous design of the new chair excited him, and he used it as a base for a series of drawings, among which were a resting woman and a cat (the only two original pieces that still remain from that artistic session). 

Eames chair with Steinberg cat black and white archive photography

(Image credit: Courtesy of Vitra)

Now Vitra launches a special limited edition of the Eames chair with Steinberg’s cat, available in 500 pieces. Vitra worked closely with the Eames office and Herman Miller, enlisting a specialised firm to scan the original chair to generate a template that became the starting point for the new design. This allowed the company to reproduce Steinberg’s intervention in as much detail as possible, painstakingly recreating his drawing onto the chair’s modern version.

Eames fiberglass chair with steinberg cat

(Image credit: Courtesy Vitra)

Several of the over 8000 drawings, paintings and New Yorker covers he produced over his career included cats, often with Steinberg himself depicted as a bespectacled cat, other times with his own cat Papoose featuring as a model. Besides the Eames Chair experiments, cat furniture was also recurrent, with feline heads drawn on walls to complete four-legged stools and tables.

Register for auction via register.vitra.com/steinberg

vitra.com

Vitra eames chair with steinberg cat

(Image credit: Courtesy Vitra)

Eames chair with Steinberg cat black and white archive photography

(Image credit: Peter Stackpole, Courtesy of Vitra)

Production of Eames chair in 1950s

(Image credit: Eames Office, LLC 2023)

Rosa Bertoli was born in Udine, Italy, and now lives in London. Since 2014, she has been the Design Editor of Wallpaper*, where she oversees design content for the print and online editions, as well as special editorial projects. Through her role at Wallpaper*, she has written extensively about all areas of design. Rosa has been speaker and moderator for various design talks and conferences including London Craft Week, Maison & Objet, The Italian Cultural Institute (London), Clippings, Zaha Hadid Design, Kartell and Frieze Art Fair. Rosa has been on judging panels for the Chart Architecture Award, the Dutch Design Awards and the DesignGuild Marks. She has written for numerous English and Italian language publications, and worked as a content and communication consultant for fashion and design brands.