We were first smitten with the work of Marilyn and John Neuhart upon discovering the handcrafted, colorful dolls that Marilyn created on commission for Alexander Girard’s Textile & Objects Shop in New York City. Anyone obsessed with mid-century modern design might wish that they could step back into the 1960’s to visit a store like this—a world of pure color, Girard’s Herman Miller textiles, and folk art from around the world. It was an environment that encapsulated Girard’s creative vision. But the work of the Neuharts extended far beyond this, as they were part of the creative force behind names like Eames and Girard, and helped to create an era of color, warmth, and simplicity in American design. They still maintain their passion for design and documenting design today. We asked Marilyn about the experiences that made them into an iconic design couple.
The Scout: What first inspired you to become designers? What was your education like and what were your early influences?
Marilyn Neuhart: From childhood both of us just gravitated intuitively to the visual world, and there was never any doubt about what we would do. We went from LBCC to UCLA’s Art Department to study graphic design, typography, art history, painting, and also history and anthropology. … Our instructors were rigorous and demanding, and introduced us to the work of designers like Charles Eames, George Nelson and Alexander Girard, among many others. They took us to galleries and museums, and to the local businesses beginning to sell the products designed in first postwar years that are now known as “mid-century modern.”
Looking back at the 1950’s and 60’s it appeared to be an exciting time for design in all disciplines. Did you feel any of that excitement or was it just another day at the office? Was there collaboration and exchange of ideas?
This was a great period to be starting a career in design. There was so much energy and optimism in the air that you’d have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to be touched by the creative forces at work in Southern California, where arts and architecture, music and writing were enriched by the expatriates who had left Europe and settled here in the early 1930’s and 40’s. We had been through a Depression and a World War, and in their aftermath life looked so much brighter and full of hope. We feel so fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time where we could absorb and often take part in some of the new things happening around us. Such optimism! Design was going to save the world and we were all happy to be a part of the effort. The Los Angeles magazine Arts & Architecture was reporting on all of the new work being done in Modernist circles and in art, literature and music and we all used it as a kind of Bible.
How were you introduced to the work of the Eames, George Nelson and Alexander Girard?
In the early 1950s these designers were just beginning to be known nationally and internationally. We were acquainted with their work (Charles’s especially) through our introduction to it at LBCC and UCLA and through articles in Arts & Architecture and other design periodicals. A few of us had actually ventured by the recently completed Eames House in the Pacific Palisades to peek throught the glass walls. In 1952, while at UCLA, Norma Matlin, one of our former LBCC instructors, called to invite us to an on-campus talk that Charles was giving to show some recent work. That was our first face-to-face meeting with him and our first glimpse into the inner workings of the Eames Office. Charles talked a little about furniture and then showed a few scenes from the uncompleted Eames Office film Communication Primer. We were really impressed by this guy who seemed to be working on projects that interested him and having a great deal of enjoyment in doing so. What a great idea! Definitely something to strive for.
How did you begin working with them?
In the summer of 1957, after a two-year stint in the army, John returned to UCLA and then was hired by the Eames Office as a graphic designer. We were married in that year and began working together as freelance designers. … Our relationship with the Eameses and Girard was mostly professional in the beginning. We worked mostly by mail for Girard, who was in Santa Fe, New Mexico from the early 1950s, seeing him when he came to Los Angeles, or when we visited Santa Fe to work on some of his graphic projects. We often drove around Los Angeles with him searching for toys and folk art— that was a real learning experience. We did become friends with the Eames Office staff members and continue that relationship today with those who are still around. If you worked at the Eames Office, you were required to adapt to any project in the office at the time, regardless of the type of discipline involved. As freelancers, John and I took whatever jobs were of interest to us that we thought we could do.
What was your involvement with the Textile and Objects shop? Do you think it could succeed if brought back today?
We worked on the graphics for the T&O shop and I produced the small, embroidered cloth dolls sold there. I don’t think that it would do well today if it were to be resurrected, but who knows?
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What inspired you to create the dolls? They have a colorful folk-art quality to them, does this aesthetic carry through to your other work?
I think the major influences on my embroidered dolls and other sewn pieces were Medieval and Renaissance embroidery, not so much folk art, although I have always appreciated it. … I first created the dolls for my children and my nieces. Girard saw them and asked if I could do them in quantity, and I said “yes,” without realizing what he meant by “quantity.” Imagine my surprise when he ordered 100 dolls to be ready in a couple of months. I met the deadline somehow, by sewing every waking minute, and continued to make lots of them until the shop and its satellites were closed. I now make a few of them every once in a while for máXimo Design’s Girard website. It’s still fun, even after all of the years of making them… My quilts are the product of my love of intense color and of blending traditional patterns with unusual color combinations. I love to sew, and am almost never without 2 or 3 projects in the works.
Were these satellite shops Herman Miller stores or did the Textile & Objects shop have other stores throughout the country?
Herman Miller set aside a small space in several of its showrooms (not sure how many and exactly where) for mini-T&Os (my description, not theirs) and displayed dolls and a few pieces of folk art and fabric items. In LA the space was enclosed and identified by an embroidered hanging, which I made. I can’t remember how long they lasted after T&O closed. By then I was occupied with other things and was making fewer dolls. There were no larger T&Os throughout the country. I don’t know what happened to the hanging, which was a pieces of see-through, white, batiste-like fabric. The embroidery was white, too.
In the same way that you created works for the Eameses and Girard, Irving Harper played a pivotal role at George Nelson’s studio, designing many iconic pieces from furniture, textile, to graphics but it’s mostly credited to George Nelson. Do you feel there were other individuals of the time who didn’t receive enough recognition?
I don’t think it was, or is, unusual that the people who actually did and do most of the hands-on work in design and architectural offices were and are largely anonymous to the world at large. Those of us working in these fields usually knew their names and what they did, but it’s usually the celebrity name that gets the credit. I actually think that Harper got more credit from Nelson than anyone at the Eames Office ever did from Charles, and especially by Ray, although I’m sure that he feels that it wasn’t enough…My new book specifically highlights those important designers at the Eames Office who performed the work day in and day out, so I hope that at least the Eames Office record will be filled out, and the proper credit given at last.
What led you to begin writing about design and documenting the work of the Eames Office?
I love putting books together, doing all of the research, the writing and the layout. In 1976 at UCLA we designed and produced the largest, most comprehensive exhibition on the work of the Eames Office to date. It seemed a natural extension of that show to do a book on the office, making use of the research we had compiled. Eames Design was the result of that effort. Later I was asked by a German publisher to do a monograph on the Eames House, which was published in 1994.
What can we look forward to next from the Neuharts?
My latest books on Eames furniture and the career of Alexander Girard are in process and I have also finished a book on my dolls and quilts. Because John is the best source of knowledge about the Eames Office, he always acts as my non-paid consultant.
Marily Neuhart’s dolls created for the Textile & Objects shop are available online at máXimo. The books Eames Design and Eames House are both available through amazon.com