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Charles and Ray Eames in India

Author(s): Saloni Mathur


Source: Art Journal, Vol. 70, No. 1 (SPRING 2011), pp. 34-53
Published by: College Art Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41430589
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EamesHouseinterior,
LosAngeles,
1944 A photograph ofthelivingroomoftheEameshousein thePacific Palisades
byTim0thy Eames
Street~POrter' ofLos has rather to historians ofdesign.
Office0 neighborhood Angeles proven puzzling
It depictsthefamousCaseStudyHouseas fullofexoticcollectibles. Hopi
kachinadolls,seashells, craft objects,silktextiles fromNepalandThailand, and
elaborately patterned rugs from Mexico and India all crowd and assaulttheir
modernist frame. BeatrizColominahascommented on this"kaleidoscopic
excessofobjects"in theEameshouse,andattributed itto Rayin
Saloni Mathur particular,describedelsewhere as a "sublimepackrat"who saved
andcollectedeverything.1 In the 1990s,thedirector oftheVitra
Charles and Ray Eames Design Museum made a similar observation the
uponvisiting
Eamesoffice: "ItseemedthatI was beingwhiskedintoa world
in India fullofimagesfromIndia,andattimesintoa circus."2 Othershave
expressed their unease with thisexcess and the difficulty ofassimi-
lating thisside of theEameses into their identities as masters of mid-century
modernism.3 How,then,shouldwe understand thispicture? Is ityetanother
sceneofmodernism s insatiable consumption ofthenon-West,a photograph
thatbelongsto thesamefamily ofimagesas thepictureoftribalartifacts in
Picasso'sstudio?Or is itan expression oftheirpostwarliberalism, an image
consistent withtheEamesesas advocates ofa cosmopolitan andmore"humane
modernism?"4
In an essayconcerned withtheEameses'relationship to thediscourses of
Pat
craft, Kirkham, author of an important book-length study of the Eameses,
hasarguedforthelatter; shehasalso gonefarto rejectthelongstanding record
ofgenderbiasthathastendedto holdRayresponsible fortheclutter. Instead,
shelinksthecouple'sunorthodox collecting practices to thesubstantial influence
on CharlesoftheAmerican ArtsandCrafts movement. to
According Kirkham,
theEamesesviewedthecarefully composedarrangements ofobjectsin theirliv-
Iamgratefultothepeople andresources ofthe ingroomas "functioning decoration," a conceptwhichdeliberately soughtto
ClarkArt theUCLA
Institute, Centerforthe
ofWomen, andtheGetty Research overcome the banishment of decoration by modernism's prevailing minimalist
Study
Institute
forsupportingdifferent
stagesofthis andwhichcontributed
sensibilities, to theiruniqueaesthetic of"addition, juxta-
Thanks
project. alsotoDavid atthe
Hertsgaard and extra-cultural Kirkham thus calls for a more dialectical
Eames Officeforhisgenerous assistance
withthe position, surprise."5
images. understanding oftherelationship betweencrafts andindustrial designin the
era and at least to the in which the Eameses'
I. Quoted phrasesarefrom BeatrizColomina, postwar points, implicitly, way
"Reflections
ontheEames House,"andJoseph fascination with the non- West remained inseparable from the hierarchies and
"The
Giovannini, OfficeofCharles Eames andRay binariesofart-craft, high-low, andmale-female.
Kaiser:
TheMaterial Trail,"inThe Work ofCharles
andRay ALegacy
Eames: ofInvention,ed.Donald This essay willnot be concerned withassessing whether theEameses'aes-
Albrecht(New York: Harry Abrams, 1997),144 theticof"extra-cultural surprise" was either humanistic or imperialistic in its
and45,respectively.
2.Alexander vonVegesack, The Work posture or effects.
Nor will it claim to provide an account of high modernism's
preface, of
CharlesandRayEames, 7. relationship to thediscourses ofcraft, whichfueledthepostwarinterest in the
3.Seefor example PatKirkham, Charlesand of "non- Western art" in a number of different
Eames: oftheTwentieth emergent category ways. Instead,
Ray Designers Century
(Cambridge, MA:MIT Press, 1995),183. I willturnto thelittle-known circumstances oftheEameses'relationship to
4.Donald Albrecht,introduction,TheWork of in to to the loaded terms of these
CharlesandRayEames, 16. India, part begin dislodge equations, in
and
5.PatKirkham,"Humanizing Modernism:The partto investigate somelargerproblems ofhistorical understanding thatemerge
Crafts, Decoration,'
'Functioning andtheEameses," fromtheseentanglements betweenEastandWest.TheEameses'projectsin India
ofDesign
Journal History I I,no.I (1998):
25.The
ideaof"extra-cultural
surprise"aspart ofthe providea dislocated setting through whichto viewtheirdesignideas,andreveal
Eames aesthetic
appears tobegin withPeter howcertainmodernaesthetic principles weretranslated andinterpolated into
Smithson, a FewChairs
"Just anda House: An
ontheEames-aesthetic," Architectural otheridiomsandcontexts ofthemodern.Byaskingnotmerely howIndiafit
Essay Design
36(September 1966): 443-46. intotheworkoftheEameses,butalso howtheEamesesfitintotheideologies

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andpractices ofthenewlyindependent nation- state,myconcernis to mapa
setofglobalarrangements thathavebeenlargely excludedfromtheprevailing
narrativesofmid-century modernism andpostwardesign.AsI willshow,the
Eamesestraveled extensively in theIndiansubcontinent duringthe i9OSand
and in a of in
1960s, participated range projects film,architecture, andexhibi-
-
tiondesign attimessuccessfully withenduring results,atothertimeslessso,
withcontradictory resultsthatpointup thelimitsoftheircross-cultural desires.
the of
Bytracing range seemingly incommensurable interactions between the
modernist canonembodiedbytheEamesesandtheverydifferent formations of
themodernproducedthrough a societysuchas India,I argueinsteadfora more
globalhistoriography ofmodernism itself,undertaken through a contextual and
comparative relation to the archive and a disruption of its universalizing claims.
Theaccountofpostwarmodernism I seekto construct, in otherwords,is one
thatincludesthemodernizing agendasofthepostcolonial nation-state, forthe
aspirations,visions,tensions, andcontradictions thatemergein thelatter, I will
argue, arecrucial to the
understanding distinctly global culture of design that
we findourselves inhabiting today.6
Scholarshaveonlyrecently begunto examinesystematically theimplica-
tionsoftheethicalandepistemological questionsraisedbynon-Western con-
textsforthemodernist canonin artandarchitectural history.7 In the case ofLe
for
Corbusier, example, architectural historians have generally regarded Swiss
the
architects unexecuted projectsforAlgiers, developedbetween1931and 1942,
afterhe receivedFrenchcitizenship, as masterpieces ofmodernism, discussing
thematlengthin formaltermswithlittleor no attention to theirsociopolitical
context.AsZeynepCelikhasargued,however, itis notsimplythelegacyofnine-
teenth-century Frenchdiscourses on theOrientor theParisianavant-garde s pre-
occupation withthenon-Westin the 1920sand 1930sthatrequiresassimilation
intothediscipline s canonicalunderstanding ofthisepisode.8 Le Corbusier s plan
fortheArabquarter, withitsspatialseparation betweentheindigenous and
Europeaninhabitants ofthecity, was an especially unsettling exampleofmod-
ernism's urbanimageatthismoment.Le Corbusier s Algiers, haditbeenbuilt,
wouldbe characterized byseparation, hierarchy, and visual supervision, with
appendedspace for "contact and collaboration" between the races. If his later
6.SeeKarenFiss,
"Design Context: planforChandigarh,
ina Global thecityborn"withoutumbilicalcord,in theharshplains
Postcolonial
Envisioning andTransnational
Pos- ofPunjab,"according to one ofIndia'spreeminent modernarchitects, produced
sibilities,"
DesignIssues
25,no.3 (2009):
3-10;and
HalFoster, andCrime
Design andOtherDiatribes fundamental and competing divergences between Le Corbusier and his client,
(LondonandNewYork: Verso,2002). PrimeMinister Jawaharlal Nehru, then the for was
plan Algiers undoubtedly
7.SeeEsraAkcan,"Critical
Practice
intheGlobal
Era:
TheQuestion 'Other' much worse: it fulfilled all ofthe most damaging premises ofcolonialurban
Concerning Geogra-
Architectural
phies," Review
Theory 7,no.I (2003); planning, whichFrantzFanonwouldlaterconnectso unequivocally to violence,
andKobena Mercer, Modernisms
ed.,Cosmopolitan and to the in anticolonial
MA:MITPress, trauma, psychicdamage self, hispowerful manifesto,
(Cambridge, 2005).
8.SeeZeynepCelik, Orientalism,The
"LeCorbusier, Wretched oftheEarth.9
Colonialism," 17 (April
Assemblage 1992):58-77; Critical interventions in architectural havethushelpedto decon-
andCelik,
UrbanFormsandColonialConfrontations: history
under
Algiers French
Rule(Berkeley: of
University structthe heroism of a figure like Le Corbusier in placeslikeAlgiers, Chandigarh,
California
Press,
1997). Istanbul,andelsewhere. They have also confronted, moresubstantially, thetre-
9.Charles
Correaquoted inVikramaditya
Prakash, LeCorbusier:
Chandigarh's The for
Struggle mendous historical complexities of modernism on the world stage at the middle
in
Modernity Postcolonial
India
(Seattle:
University of thepreviouscentury, foritis a historical momentwhichbelongssimultane-
ofWashingtonPress,
2002),32.SeealsoFranz
The Wretched ously to nationalism and decolonization, modernism's variedresponses to colo-
Fanon, oftheEarth(NewYork:
Grove,1965). nialism,andtheresiduesoforientalism ofthenineteenth-century sort.Itis

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usefulto recallthatEdwardSaidhadcautionedagainstextending thearguments
ofOrientalism,rooted in thehistorical logic of the nineteenth century, to thecom-
plexitiesofthetwentieth century precisely becausehe feltthathis 1978book
couldnotaccountforthegreatpoliticalandcultural movements ofdecoloniza-
tionwithinwhichmodernism s canonwas produced. A "hugeandremarkable
adjustment in perspective andunderstanding" was required, he stated, to account
fortwentieth-century modernism s postures andsensibilities, whichled to the
endoftheeraofcolonialsubjugation anda newself-awareness formanyof
thoseinvolved. IOSaidwas interested in a writerlikeJosephConradprecisely
becausehe saton thecuspofthisthreshold; itwas theambiguity andessential
lackofclarity ofHeart ofDarkness
thatgenerated Said'sbrilliant readingofthe"two
visions"madepossiblebythe"complicated andrichnarrative formofConrad's
greatnovella."11 the
Although paradigms of Orientalism werequicklyassimilated
intothefieldofarthistory, and the of
study nineteenth-century painting, in par-
Said-ianapproaches
ticular, to thetwentieth century havereceivedfarlessatten-
tionin thevisualarts.ForSaid,Conrad'smethodofspectral illumination and
mistymeaning "as a
-making, glowbrings out a haze," marked not only dif-
the
ficulty, and on
confusion, gloombrought by increasing the inevitability ofcolo-
nialism'sdemise,italsorepresented modernism's responseto theerosionofan
earlierepistemological ground (i.e.,orientalism) . Through suchreadings, and
in muchofhislaterwork,Saidsoughtan accountoftwentieth-century culture
byplacingmodernism's aesthetic forms, or atleastitsliterary forms, thenovel
in particular,within theworld-historical unfolding ofdecolonization andantico-
lonialnationalism in thetwentieth century. How can we meaningfully extend
theseinsights to themodernist canonsofthevisualarts?Andwhatwouldit
meanto rethink ouraccountof"mid-century modernism" through thediscrep-
antnarratives ofa postcolonial one?
TheEamesesareperhaps, on first glance,an unlikely pointofentry into
someoftheseconcernsandtrajectories to
relating postcolonial modernity
becausein manywaystheyserveto epitomizea storythatis thoroughly Amer-
ican.BothCharlesandRaywerebornbefore WorldWarI (he in St.Louis,and
shein Sacramento) andwereshapedbythepoliticaleconomyoftheDepression
andtheNewDeal.Charles's designideaswereimprinted byhisexperiences in
and
engineering manufacturing, by and blue-collar jobs he held in the heart-
land,whileRaywas influenced byearlyAbstract Expressionism duringhertime
in NewYorkin thelate 1930s.12Theymarriedandmovedto LosAngelessix
monthsbeforethebombingofPearlHarbor, wheretheyjoinedan groupof
acclaimedJewish migrs from Europe to establish a robustaesthetic andintel-
lectualculturein thatcity. Yettheyalso signaleda majordeparture fromtheir
peers in these Old World circles:the Eameses did not maintain a "high- cultural"
distancefromtheformsofmasscultureso unappealing to a contemporary
neighbor likeTheodorAdorno.Instead,thecoupleservedto embodySouthern
California as a siteforthe"American Dream,"definedas theseductive mixof
postwarprosperity, consumerism, television, freeways, and good weather.
10.Edward Culture
Said, andImperialism ThisAmericanness was stampedintoall theircontributions, fromtheCase
(New
York: 293.
1993),
Vintage, Study House of 1949, heralded by Peter Smithson as "whollyoriginalandwholly
IL Ibid.,
22.
12.Giovannini,
48-58. American," yetsomehow"through Mies,"'3to theirfamousfurniture experi-
13.Smithson 127.
inColonnina,
quoted mentswithmoldedplywoodandplastic,which"changedthewaythetwentieth

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CharlesandRayEameswiththescholar
of satdown,"according to theWashington 14Theirpatriotism
Post. was per-
century
Pritwish
Asianartandaesthetics in
Neogy, most in their
exhibition work for thefederal suchas
anoutdoor stall,
photography Delhi, haps explicit government,
6, 1958(photograph
January EamesOffice, theirshowforthebicentennial oftheAmerican Revolution, TheWorldofFranklin
LLC) andJefferson,
whichwas pannedas overly ideologicalbysomecritics("Whatis
thisstuffdoingattheMet?"demandedHiltonKramer in theNew York or
Times),
theirmultiscreen filmforthe 1959American NationalExhibition in Moscow,
tidedGlimpsesoftheUSA.15Thelatter,whichprojected overtwothousandstill
andmovingimagesontosevenhugescreenshanginginsidea Buckminster
Fullergeodesicdome,was intended to convey"a dayin thelifeoftheUnited
Itwas viewedbysomethreemillionRussianvisitors
States." to theexhibition,
whichbecamefamousas thesiteofanothermediaspectacle, namely, the
impromptu "Kitchen Debate"betweenNikitaKhrushchev andRichardNixon,
whenthetwoleadersdiscussedtheirpoliticaldifferences againsta backdrop
ofdomesticappliancesandtheescalations ofthecoldwar.'6
TheEameses'first Indianproject - a contribution to a 1955exhibitiontided
inAlbrecht
14.Cited 15.
introduction, -
15.Hilton
Kramer
article
quotedinHelene andOrnamental
Textile ArtsofIndiaatNewYorks MuseumofModernArt was also
"Natural
Lipstadt, Charles
Overlap: andRay shapedbythiscold-warpicture. Placingstillimagesofobjectsin theshow
EamesandtheFederal inThe
Government," Work the dramatic sounds of an Indianraga, theEamesesproduceda shortfilm
ofCharles
andRay 166.
Eames, against
16.Ibid.,
160-66. fortheinstallation,whichwas designedbytheirfriend, thearchitectAlexander

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Textile
andOrnamental Arts
ofIndia
exhibi- Girard,andorganizedbyEdgarKaufmann, thedirector
Jr., ofindustrialdesignat
tion,1955,installation
view, atleft
showing the MoMAduringthetimeofits"GoodDesign"exhibitions. 17GirardandKaufman
contested
colonial-era called
sculpture Tipu's
Museum
Tiger, ofModern NewYork.
Art, MoMA had traveled andcollectobjectsfor
in thefallof 1954to survey
to Indiatogether
Archives byAlexander
(photograph Georges, theexhibition."I hadsixweeks,"Kaufman
TheMuseum ofModernArt/ explainedapologetically,
digital
image
Licensed
bySCALA/Art Resource,
NY) in whichto pickup a smattering Monroe
idea ofIndiaanditscrafts.
Wheeler'slibrary andMuseumatCooperUnionweremain-
andtheLibrary
stays;expertsattheMetropolitan
MuseumandtheBostonMuseumofFine
ArtsjoinedtheCooperUnionstaff in helpingme cram.Noneofthiscould
sufficetoprepareme fortheexceptional ofIndiantextiles
diversification
whichI found,norfortheirwidedispersion in thecountry,
norfortheele-
17.Mary
Anne The
Staniszewski, Power
ofDisplay: phantine leisurewithwhichIndiamoves,whenandifitmoves Timing
AHistory Installations
ofExhibition attheMuseum
ofModern
Art MA:MITPress, 1998). wasone block.Another was thenewnessandstiffness oftheCentral
Govern-
(Cambridge,
18.Edgar
Kaufman,Jr., Report
"Preliminary onthe ment Indiais facing a gigantic,
controlled toindustrialization.'8
conversion
Indian Department
Voyage," ofCirculating
Exhibi-
tions II.1.83.2.
Records, 1,MuseumofModern Art Kaufman was particularly
excitedbyloanshe hadsecuredfromthemajor
NewYork,
Archives, 2.
19.Edgar
Kaufman, letter
Jr., toKamaladevi in
museums Delhi,Bombay, andCalcutta,alongwithnumerous privatelenders,
Chairman
Chattopadhyay, oftheAll-India becausetheyrepresenteditemsthatwere"trulyIndianin design"in contrast
Handicrafts
Board, October25,1954,Depart- collections
mentofCirculating
Exhibitions II.1.83.2.
Records 1, to the"export"wares,whichhe felthad "dominated Western up to
MuseumofModern Art NewYork.
Archives, now."19ButKaufman resigned beforetheopening of theshow,passingthe

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designdirectorship on to MonroeWheeler. Thepreparations hadcoincidedwith
theopeningofhisinfamous MoMAexhibition TheFamily ofMan, whichpresented
"theessential onenessofmankind throughout the world" through thephoto-
graphic selections of curator-photographer Edward Steichen.20 If the latterexhi-
bitionoffered up postwar Americaas partofan integrated globalunitythrough
a portraiture thatvalorizeddifference anderasedinequality, thentheformer was
similarly mired in the ideologicalagendas of the time: the intention of theIndia
show,according to Kaufman, was to improve India-USrelations, especially given
"theurgency withwhichIndiatoday, independent andindustrially bourgeon-
ing,was beingcourtedbybothpartiesin thecoldwarcontest."21
Theexhibition thusrevealed America s fearsaboutIndia'salliancesin the
cold-warstruggle, fearsthatwouldonlyescalatethatyearbecauseofan event
takingplacein anotherpartoftheworld.Theeventwas theBandungConfer-
ence,theemotionally chargedmeetingheldin Bandung, Indonesia,thatbrought
together twenty-nine newly liberated countries of Asia and Africa, theself-declared
"underdogs of the human in
race," response to the bipolarpoliticsofthecold
war.22 Thegoalofthemeeting, in thewordsofitshost,theIndonesian president
Sukarno, wasto "injectthevoiceofreasonintoworldaffairs," through a newalli-
anceof"third" or "non-aligned" nationsunitedbytheircommitment topeace,
andtheirsharedhistories ofcolonialandanticolonial struggle.23Themeeting rep-
resented, in otherwords,thespirited beginnings of the "Third World" ideological
projectanditsforeign-policy counterpart, theNon-Aligned Movement, which
was formalized by Nehru of India, Gamal Abdel Nasser of and
Egypt, JosipTito
ofYugoslavia in 1961, andviewedas a provocation bythecold-warpowers.
Although arthistorians haveincreasingly turnedto theimpactofcold-war
discourses on thevisualarts,theglobalimplications ofan eventlikethe
Bandung Conference have not been part of thisrevisionist project, whichin
itsaccountofcold-warculturecontinues to privilege theart-historical divide
betweena dominant prewarFranceandAmerican hegemony after the war.24
Here,OkwuiEnwezors ambitious attempt to archiveandexhibitthemodesof
20.Edward Steichen, The
introduction, Familyof cultural self-awareness thatfoundexpression inAfrica in thispostwarperiod,
Man(NewYork: MoMA, 4.SeealsoEric
1955),
Sandeen, anExhibition:
Picturing The ofMan
Family which reshaped for African nations a "short century,"a noteworthy
is exception.
and1950's America (Albuquerque: of
University Enwezors lesson,forourpurposes, is thattheradicaltransformations ofthe
NewMexico Press, 1995).
21. EdgarKaufman, Report
Preliminary onthe worldin thepostwarperiodcannotbe understood outsidetheagencyand
Jr.,
IndianVoyage, I. SeealsoDonald Albrecht, autonomy of Africa's liberation struggles and the new conceptions ofselfand
"Design Isa Method inThe
ofAction," Work of the Conference. Thesesocial
Charles
andRay Eames, 33. societythat found expression in events like Bandung
22.SeeRichard Wright, TheColor AReport processesgenerated,
Curtain: in Enwezor 's terms, a fundamental change in the Western
onthe Bandung Conference (NewYork: World oftheuniversal subject,"challenging andtransforming theontolog-
Publishing,1956) 12. conception
23.Sukarno in
quotedVijay The
Prashad, Darker icallimits imposedbyEuropeanhegemony." As such, they remain a "strong
APeople's
Nations: History World
oftheThird (New knotin thetangledwebofthemoderncondition," anddemanda revision of
York andLondon: NewPress, 34.
2007), 25
24.SeeSerge Guilbaut, How New York
Stole themetanarratives ofthetwentieth century.Twocrucialquestions, raised by
the IdeaofModern Art (London andChicago: Enwezorandbydiscussions in postcolonial historiography, moregenerally, thus
University ofChicago Press, andIrving
1983);
Sandler,"Abstract andtheCold serve to inform the present investigation: How are modernist practices and
Expressionism
War," Art inAmerica, 2008,
June-July 65-74.For formsofrepresentation in thepostwarperiodlinkedto "other"ideasabouthis-
analternativeperspective, seeJohn "Art
Clark, andnationhood, which
GoesNon-Aligned," Art 2,no.4 (1995). toryandagency, cultureandprogress, andsovereignty
AsiaPacific
25.Okwui Enwezor, The
introduction, Short wereunfolding in dialogueanddissentwiththedominant practices oftheera?
Century:Independence Movements
andLiberation in And what is the relevance of this historical matrixforourunderstanding of
1945-1994,
Africa, ed.Enwezor London,
(Munich,
NewYork: 2001), 15and16.
Prestei, modernism, and indeed the world,today?

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ThreeyearsaftertheBandungConference, in 1958,Nehru,thefirst prime
minister ofindependent India,invitedtheEamesesto helpthedeveloping coun-
tryincorporate designintohisprojectofnationalregeneration. Beforeelaborat-
ing,however, I wantto attendmorecloselyto thesummerof 1955,whenthe
self-assertions oftheformer coloniesat theBandungConference converged with
thearrival ofIndianartandaesthetics intopublicconsciousness in theUnited
States.
TheTextile andOrnamental ArtsofIndia exhibition atMoMAhad gathered an
unprecedented range of textiles,
crafts, and decorativeobjects from collections
andinstitutions aroundtheworld,including severalhundredloansfromthe
Victoria andAlbert Museumin London,suchas thehighlysymbolic Tipus Tiger,
seizedbytheBritish in 1799andstilldisplayed attheVictoria andAlbert in
London.26Tellingly, American audienceswerelargely indifferent to thiscontested
symbolofimperialrule;theyresponded insteadto Girard s installation of
brightly coloredsarisfromdifferent regionsofthesubcontinent, whichhung
overa fifty-foot pool ofwaterandwerereflected fortheviewerin a largemir-
roredwall.Visitors didnotappearto objectto thisor otherviolations committed
by Girard to the sanctity ofMoMA s modernist "white cube" space.Indeed,his
installation,designedas an imaginary bazaar,receivedravereviewsin NewYork's
fashionmagazinesand,intentionally or not,helpedto establish thevillagescene
as theprivileged setting forthe display of Indian craftsin the postwarperiod.
MoMAs Textile andOrnamental Arts ofIndiathusreceivedsignificant attention
bythemainstream mediaandwas featured in Life,theNew Yorker,theNew York
Times Women
Magazine, sWear andHarpers
Daily, Bazaar, beforetraveling forthenext
threeyearsto morethana dozenlocationsin theUnitedStates, ranging from
Pennsylvania, and to
Illinois, Tennessee, Texas,California, Florida, and Hawaii.
Theexhibition alsobrought theEamesesintocontactwitha numberofdistin-
guished"experts" on Indianart,including StellaKramrisch, theAustrian profes-
sorandcurator ofIndianartwho hadrecently arrived to workin Philadelphia,
PupulJayakar, thewriterandcultural activist knownforheradvocacyofcrafts
in Indiansociety, andJohnIrwin,theKeeperoftheIndianSectionattheVictoria
andAlbert Museumin London.Itis morethana simplecoincidence thatall of
theseauthorities on Indianartwouldconverge on theMoMAshow,thefirst
large-scale exhibition ofIndianculturein theUnitedStates. Theywere,more
accurately,pioneering figuresin an international artworldthathadbeenideo-
logicallyandpolitically transformed bytherealities ofcultural sovereignty in
thesubcontinent, who possesseda spirited senseofmission,simultaneously
nationalist andinternationalist, in relation to thevisualarts.Theroleofthis
firstgeneration ofpostcolonial artpractitioners was to consolidate andinsti-
tutionalize knowledge aboutIndianartforthefirst timeon thisnewglobal
stage,whichwas also definedbya growing American hegemony andNew
York'sincreasingly unrivaled statusas theepicenter ofthemodernartworld.
Nevertheless, thefriendship betweenJayakar andtheEamesesthatwas first
established herecontinued overthenextthreedecades,resulting in a numberof
dynamic collaborations and initiatives that I will continue to explicate through-
outthisessay.
To accompany andOrnamental
Textiles ArtsofIndia, MoMAhadorganizeda
26.SeeRichard Lives
Davis, ofIndian
Images music,dance,andfilmprogram thatwas especially wellreceivedbythepress.It
Princeton
(Princeton,
NJ: Press,
University1997). includedtheAmerican debutsofthemastersarod player,AliAkbarKhan,andthe

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legendary Bharatnatyam dancerShantaRao.Significantly, theprogram culmi-
natedon thefinaldayin theworldpremiere ofSatyajit Ray'sPather Panchali. The
Bengali director s firstfilm, which the
inaugurated Aputrilogy, received interna-
tionalcritical acclaimandestablished theparadigm fora progressive Indianart
in thefirst decadeafter Independence.27 Although Raydidnotattend New the
Yorkpremiere, he wrotein hismemoir, MyYears with Apu, oftherushto complete
thefilmon timeandthesuspensein Calcutta as he waitedfortheresponseto the
screening fromMonroeWheeleratMoMA.28The telegram, declaring thefilm"a
triumph ofsensitive photography," camethreeweekslater, according toRay,and
itsetin motiona setofeventsthatforever changedhislifeandwork.Halfa cen-
tury later, the event, along with Ray's own recollections, is inseparable fromthe
widercontext ofloresurrounding thislegendary cinematic figure. "memoir"
The
recalling thisepisodewas,forinstance, reconstructed from the notesforan
unfinished draft, written byhiswidowseveral yearsafter hisdeath.29
Nonetheless, -
Ray'sadaptation famously influenced byFrenchandItalian
Neorealism - ofthe 1929BengalinovelbyBibhutiBhushanBanner j abouta
youngboy,Apu,andthechangesexperienced byhisvillagein Bengalevokeda
setoficonic,liberal-secular symbolsforthetransformations occurring in newly
independent India. Although Ray's distinctbrand of poetic realism, which the
Japanese master of cinema Akira Kurosawa praised as the "river-like flow" ofhis
films, wouldlaterbe criticized foritsdistance from the it
political, signified to
theworldin the 1950sa "principled standon cultural expression, itseconomy
its
being gesture of refusal," and revealed his confidence in the value ofthe
modernas he negotiated a vernacular cinemaintoa worldcinema,a "seminal
repositioning" forcultural practice in thesubcontinent.30 Whileinterpretations
ofRay'sBildungsroman ofBengalvarya greatdeal,scholarsofIndiancinematend
to agreeon thetrilogy's statusas "one oftheartistic pinnaclesofa specifically
modernist artenterprise inaugurated bypost-war Nehruite nationalism."3' What
precisely is meantbythis"post-war Nehruite nationalism," epitomized byRay's
earlycinema,willbecomecleareras I turnto investigate theEameses'nextsetof
involvements withIndia.Fornow,itis important to observethespirited cosmo-
politanism of the summer of 1955 in New York, when a variety of modernist
formsandexpressions - in dance,music,cinema,andthevisualarts,shapedby
Indianartists andwriters, andan international community ofcurators and
scholarsempathetic to thisemerging vanguard - came together at MoMA, the
27.SeeGeeta When WasModernism: citadel of modernism, in defiance of thehard separation between "craft" and
Kapur,
EssaysonContemporaryCultural inIndia
Practice "fineart"thatwas thedubiousinheritance ofcolonialartinstitutions. Energized
(NewDelhi: Tulika,
2000),201-32. the acts of self-assertion on the of the nations"
28.SeeSatyajit
Ray,MyYears withApu(London: by part "underdog occurring
Faberand Faber,1997). simultaneously in Bandung, thenovelty ofthishistoric exhibition is thatit
29.SeeBijoyaRay, ibid.
preface, to have if
deflected, only for the moment, the fate of Indian artwithin
30.Moinak "Introduction:
Biswas, Returns,"appears
Critical
inApu andAfter:
Re-visiting
Ray'sCinema,ed. whatJamesClifford hascalledthe"art-culture system," thatstructure ofoverde-
Biswas(London, New and
York, Calcutta:
Seagull termination thathasfortoolongdecidedthevalueofnon-Western artas it
Books, I; seealsoAshish
2006), Rajadhyaksha,
"Satyajit Ray's
Ray, Films
andtheRay-movie," enters into the Western museum.32
ofArts
Journal andIdeas 23-24(January1993). WhentheEamesesarrived in Indiain 1958,theyjoineda growingcadreof
31. "Pather inEncyclopaedia
Panchali," ofIndian Western
Cinema ,ed.Ashish andPaul architects anddesigners, including Le Corbusier, LouisKahn,Richard
Rajadhyaksha
Willemen (NewDelhi: Oxford Press, Neutra,andGraceMcCannMorley theAmerican
University - womanwho lefttheSan
1999),343. Francisco Museum ofArt to become directorof India's first nationalmuseum -
32.James The
Clifford, ofCulture
Predicament
Cambridge,MA:Harvard Press,
University 1988). who hadall respondedto theurgentcallbythenewnation-state to assistwith

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RayEamesandDeborah Sussmanriding itsmodernizing Themomenthadarrived,
projects.33 as Nehrustatedin his
anelephant,
Udaipur, 1964.
Rajasthan, famous"Tryst withDestiny" delivered on theeveofindependence on
ofCongress
Library Prints
andPhotographs speech
Work
Division, ofCharles
andRay
Eames, August14,1947, "which comes but in
rarely history, when we stepoutfrom
10-64
LC-E 1231-E-3
1A(photograph
Eames theold to thenew,whenan age ends,andwhenthesoulofa nation,longsup-
Office,
LLC)
pressed,findsutterance."34 Nehrus wordsalso signalwhatParthaChatterjee has
identified as the"momentofarrival" in thedevelopment ofnationalistthought
in India,the"final,fullymature"ideologicalform, whichtransformed national-
ismintostatepractice andclaimeda conception ofsocialjustice,however lim-
ited,as itslegitimizing Nehru
principle.35 s hubris was to believe that
India
couldcatchup in itsdelayedmodernity byaccelerating thepaceofindustrializ-
33.SeeKristy "Grace
Phillips, McCann Morleyand ation - bybuilding new dams,offices, iron and steelplants,factories,airlines,
theNational
Museum ofIndia,"
inNoTouching,
Modalities in and cities
at a historically
unprecedented rate. Buoyed by Nehru's intelligence
Spitting,
Praying: ofthe Museum
ModernSouth ed.Saloni
Asia, Mathur andKavita andoptimism(and thedeathofMahatmaGandhi,forthelatter s anti-industrial-
(NewDelhi:
Singh RoutledgeIndia,
forthcomingismandemphasison theprimacy ofIndias villagesocietywerea farcryfrom
2012).
34.Jawaharlal
Nehru, with
"Tryst in
Destiny," Nehru'splanforaggressive development), thenationsetoutto reinvent itself
Book
Penguin ofTwentieth ed.
Speeches,
Century withan almostevangelical zeal.Indeed,Nehru'sstatement thatthenation's
Brian
McArthur(London:PenguinViking,
1992),
234-37. hydroelectric damswerethenew"templesofmodernIndia"perhapsbestcap-
35.Partha Nationalist
Chatterjee, inthe
Thought turesthespirited, seculardriveofthismoment, notto mentiontheironythat
Colonial
World:
ADerivative
Discourse
(Minneapolis:its
ofMinnesota
University 1986).
Press, righteous awakening was to be realized through theauthority ofscience.36
36.Nehru in
quotedVikramaditya 1
Prakash,0; In relationto modernartandarchitecture, partofthechallengeofthe
seealsoGyan Another
Prakash, Reason:
Science
and
the Nehruvian visionwas to liberatedesign from itstraditionalassociationwith
ofModern
Imagination India
(Princeton,
NJ:
Princeton 1
Press,
University 999). colonial art educationunder the British.
As I have elaborated elsewhere, thefour

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majorartschoolsestablished bytheBritish in Indiaduringthenineteenth
century werepartofthewiderprogram for"cultural improvement" in the
colony;they servedto a
institutionalize sharp distinctionbetween "finearts,"
on one hand,definedasWestern- and
stylepainting sculpture, and thesphereof
Indiancrafts, on theother, definedas theaesthetic outputoftheIndianvillage.37
Design,in otherwords,untilthetimeofindependence was promoted as the
traditionalartsandcrafts ofthevillageanddistinguished against industrialpro-
duction.Moreover, thenationalist responseto sucha distinction in thefirsthalf
ofthetwentieth century,in theformoftheswadeshi movement andGandhis khadi
campaignemphasizing homespunproducts India,didnot
fora self-sufficient
present any realchallenge to theterms of theaestheticdivisions establishedin
thecolonialperiod.38
In responseto thishistory, Nehrusetoutto forgea newrelationship
betweendesignandindustrial modernity forthedecolonizing nation,one that
was drivenbyan overriding concern,as I havenoted,withtheproblemof
India's"belatedmodernization." TheEameseswerethusenlistedto assistwith
thischallenge, alongwitha hostofotherscientists, engineers,designers, and
architectsfromEuropeandNorthAmerica. Butthegoalwas notsimplyto emu-
latetheWestor adoptitsmodernist stylesanddesigns.Nehru'sinvestment in
modernarchitecture anddesignwas,asVikramaditya Prakashhasarguedin his
accountofLe Corbusier andthecityofChandigarh, ultimatelyinstrumental,
privilegedbytheleadernotbecausehe believedin artforart'ssake,butbecause
he sawdesignas a catalyst forchange,newness,andcreativity forIndians.In
Nehru'swords:
Themainthingtodayis thata tremendous amountofbuildingis taking
placein Indiaand an should
attempt be madeto giveita rightdirection
andto encouragecreative witha measureoffreedom
mindsto function so
thatnewtypesmaycomeout,newdesigns,newtypes,newideas,andout
37.Saloni
Mathur,India Colonial
byDesign: History ofthatamalgamsomething newandgoodwillemerge.39
andCultural
Display
(Berkeley: of
University
California
Press,2007). Thatsomething "newandgood"wouldemergeoutof"rightdirection" and
38.SeeChatterjee;
alsoRebecca Brown, Gandhi's
Wheel
Spinning andthe MakingofIndia(London: "creativeminds" is best
perhaps represented in architecture and designjournals
Routledge,
2010);andLisaTrivedi,
Clothing oftheperiod,whichtheEamesesstudiously collectedfortheirfiles.Proposals
Gandhi's
Nation:
Homespun andModern India
Indiana
(Bloomington: Press,
University 2007). for"improving" thedesignofsuchsubcontinental classicsas theauto-rickshaw,
39.Nehru quotedinVikramadityaPrakash,10. thetiffin
lunchbox,anddevanagri script, example,serveto communicate
for the
40.Forexample,Ashoke Chatterjee,
"Design in
DevelopingSocieties:
Problems ofRelevance," problem- solvingspirit oftheNehruvian era, and the roleof the conun-
specific
AddresstotheTenth International
Congress of drumthatwouldbe increasingly understood as "designin a developing society,"
theInternational
CouncilofSocieties
onIndustrial in summoned
Dublin,Ireland, 20,1977. or design an Indian idiom.40Although Nehru's senseof urgency
Design, September
Eames Papers,
LibraryofCongress,Washington,youngarchitects anddesigners to thinkbigandtakerisks,thegeneraleuphoria
DC,Box46,Folder 2. of theera didnot,in hindsight, enablethemto debateissuesatlength, or
41.James "The
Belluardo, Architectureof
Kavinde, andCorrea
Doshi, andPolitical "evolvea theoretical
inSocial approachto design,"leadingto themuchgreater problem
Context,"andKenneth Frampton,"South Asian in theIndiancaseofan absenceofcriticism andtheory withinmodernism, that
InSearch
Architecture: ofa Future
Origin,"in
AnArchitecture
ofIndependence:TheMaking of is,a modernism characterizedby"triumphant instrumentality" withoutthe
Modern South
Asia,ed.KaziKhaleedAshraf and disjunctures ofan avant-garde, "atbesta reformist modernism."41 Themostpow-
Belluardo
(NewYork: Architectural
League of
NewYork, 1998),14and10;andKapur, When erfulresponseto thisproblematic legacyis undoubtedly thefoundational inter-
WasModernism, 202. ventionmadebyGeetaKapur, who haseffectively managedto highlight this
42.Kapur,"When WasModernism inIndian her
inWhen
Art?," WasModernism, 297-324 (my lack,andmanyofthesubstantive andtheoretical issuesitraises,through
emphasis). short buthaunting rhetorical
question, "When was modernism in Indianart?"42

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Page14from anIndian
3, 1973,
dc-output
journal
design inBombay,
published fromthe
ofCharles
collection Eames.
Eames Box
Papers,
45,Folder ofCongress,
8,Library Washington
DC(photographEamesOffice,
LLC)

In 1958theEamesesspentfivemonthstraveling in India,fundedbythe
FordFoundation, in orderto producea commissioned reporton thefuture of
Indiandesign.Theyvisitedfactories andvillagesandmetwithartists, craftsmen,
intellectuals,andgovernment - including
officials Nehruandhisdaughter,
IndiraGandhi - to familiarize themselves withIndiandesigntraditions, espe-
ciallythose related to everyday objects.RayEamesreflected on theexperience
in an interview sometwodecadeslater:"Charlesandmyself," sheexplained,
"touredall overIndia,finally stoppingattheHotelCecilneara whitewashed
mosque, and in degrees theshade,wrotea reportcalledtheEames
125- in
Report The reportwas inspired bythemanybrightchildren we sawin the
-
villages curious,open,active,beautiful youngpeoplewithtremendous poten-
tial/'43
TheEames Reportor TheIndiaReport ( 1958),whichbeganwitha passagefrom
43.RayEames inReena
quoted "East
Pinto, Meets theSanskrit philosophical text,theBhagavad Gita,recommended "a soberinvesti-
West with
(Interview Ray Inside
Eames)," Outside:
TheIndian
DesignMagazine,February-March gation into those valuesand those qualities thatIndians hold important to a
1988.EamesPapers,
LibraryofCongress, good life."44
As Ashoke a
Chatterjee,leadingfigure in Indian has
design, written,
DC,Box46,Folder
Washington, 3. What
44.Charles
andRay Eames, The
India
Report,
"Government officialswere expecting a feasibility
report. theygotwas an
1958,rep.
Marg 20,no.3 (June
1967):22-23. extraordinary statement ofdesign as a value system, [and] as an attitudethat

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CharlesEames, . 1958(photograph coulddiscernthestrengths
Lota, andlimitationsofbothtradition andmodernity . . "45
Eames Office,
LLC) TheEamesesarguedin thereportforan assessment of "the evolving symbols
ofIndia"andtheneedto connectthesevaluesandsymbolsto "theproblems of
environment andshelter," servicesandobjects,andsolutionsto theseproblems
"in theory andactualprototype." Thetaskoftranslating Indias symbolsandval-
ues into concrete detailswould be "difficult, and
painful pricelessly rewarding,"
theyacknowledged, butin lightofthedramatic rateofchangein Indiansociety,
thattaskwas moreurgentthaneverbefore.46
Jayakar,who contributed to thecatalogueoftheIndiantextileshowat
for
MoMAandwas responsible introducing theEamesesto Nehru,described the
meetingin whichthecouplepresented theirreportto government officials
as
"unforgettable." Charles Eames beganquoting from the BhagavadGita;when puz-
zledgovernment ministers soughtfeedback on industrial design."Therewas
utterchaosofcommunications," shewrote.47Thereportitselfalsoreflects some
ofthediscrepancies andmissedcommunications ofthisencounter. Charles's
fetishization ofthelota(or watervessel),whichhe called"thegreatest, most
beautiful" object "we have seenand admired during our visitto India,"and
whichhe documented in hundreds of for
photographs, example, elevatedthis
45.Ashoke inIndia:
The everyday objectto thehighestofdesignideals."How wouldone go about
Chatterjee,
"Design in thereport, a listoftwenty-some
ofTransition,"
Experience Design 21,no.4
Issues designing a lota?"he theorized offering
(Autumn 5.
2005): details,from the mathematical to thephenomenological, relevantto itsconstruc-
46.Charles
andRayEames,TheIndia ,
Report
22-28. tion.48 to
Thelotawas chosen,according Ray, "as a fixed symbol utilitarianism
of
47.Pupul inEames
quoted
Jayakar An in an evolving
Demetrios, patternofdesign.Itcouldhavebeenanything elsefromtheday
EamesPrimer
(NewYork: 2001),29.
Universe, to lives ofthe the cultural associationin thesub-
48.Charles
andRayEames,TheIndia 25.
Report, day people."49Unfortunately,
49.Ray inPinto
Eames interview,
n.p. continent of thelotawith defecation, and
hygiene, washing oneself appearsto

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haveeludedthecouple,andCharleslaterincludedhisdiscourseon thelotain his
lecturesandslide-shows atHarvardandelsewhere. 50Thelotawouldeventually
appear,alongwiththequotefromtheBhagavad Gita,on thecouples Christmas
cardduringtheholidayseasonbackin LosAngeles.
Significantly,TheEames Reportalsorecommended theestablishment ofa per-
manentinstitute fordesignin Indiaas a "steering device"in the"relentless
searchforquality." Theintegrity andqualityofdesign,thecouplewrotepro-
"must
phetically, be maintained if thisnewRepublicis to survive." Thefuture lay
in thetraining ofstudents, theyargued,who seemed"muchbrighter thantheir
designs";thestudent's drawings were,regrettably, in Indiain the1950's,"an
of
assemblage inappropriate clichs."51 Nehru's responsewas to establish the
NationalInstitute ofDesignin 1961inAhmedabad, a that
Gujarat, city resonated,
paradoxically,witha history ofnonindustrial designpractice, as India'stextile
capitalandthesiteofMahatmaGandhi'sashram, wherethelatter led thenation
in hisboycott ofindustrially produced British goods. Nevertheless, theNational
InstituteofDesign,or NID,thedirectresultofTheEames was
Report, the first
attempt bya developing country to use thedesignprinciples inherited fromthe
Bauhausas a toolfornationalregeneration; itremainsone ofthepremier cul-
turalinstitutionsin Indiatoday, the
setting pedagogic standard for most other
designschoolsin thecountry.52 Moreover, theEameses'attention towhatthey
calledthe"vernacular expressions ofdesign"andto "everyday solutions to
unspectacular problems" reflected theirawareness ofthespecific dilemmasof
designin a rapidly industrializing, ancientsociety - dilemmaswhicharebyno
meansresolvedin Indiain thetwenty-first century, a pointto whichI willreturn
attheendofthisessay.
After Nehru'sdeathin 1964,theEamesesreturned to Indiaforthreemore
monthsto plan,in conjunction withstudents andstaff attheNID,a memorial
exhibition aboutthemantheyhad greatly admired. According toRayEames,
thecouplethought "longandhardabouthowyoutreatthelifeofsucha great
manconceptually.'43 Theexhibition thatresulted, Nehru: HisLifeandHisIndia, incor-
porated some twelve hundred photographs, plus fabrics, artobjects, and sound,
as wellas a re-createdjail cellfeaturing Nehru'sprisonwritings. Deborah
Sussman, fromtheEamesOffice, described working inAhmedabad on theproj-
ect:Forseveralmonths, "sevendaysandsevennights, interrupted byoccasional
fevers,ourlivesweresubmerged in theexhilarating, oftenmaddening process
ofdesigning andbuildingtheexhibit.. . . Rayhadbeentheremostofthetime,
valiantlycopingwiththedifficulties oflifein India.. . . Shesubsequently became
a vegetarian."54
TheNehruexhibition was a greatsuccesswhenitopenedat
London'sRoyalFestival Hallin 196^andwas visitedbysomeninetythousand
50.SeeDemetrios,
32,andAlbrecht,35-36. the sole survivor in theNehrufamily, IndiraGandhi.
51. Charles
andRay Eames,The India 26.
Report, people,including
52.SeeAshoke 5;andSinganapalli
Chatterjee, In herbiography ofIndiraGandhi,Jayakar reported thatsheseemed"dazed
Balaram,
"DesignPedagogyinIndia:
A afterherfather's death,"unableto fullyregister theloss.55 toJayakar,
Issues
21,no.4 (Autumn According
Perspective,"
Design
2005):15. the memorial exhibition gave her a focus,an "immediate plan",which shedis-
53.RayEames quotedinKirkham,Charles
andRay cussed"withpassion,"in partbecauseshefearedthatan incominggovernment
Eames,284.
54.Deborah Sussman
quoted mightcreate"a newinterpretation"
in"Appreciations," ofNehru'slegacy.56 Bythetimetheexhibi-
inTheWork ofCharles
andRay Eames,184. tiontraveled to NewYork, Washington, andLosAngelesin 1966, Mrs.Gandhi
55.Pupul Indira
Jayakar, Gandhi:
AnIntimate wouldherself be swornin as India'sfirst femaleprimeminister, the
(NewYork:
Biography Pantheon, 122.
1988), accepting
56.Ibid.,
123. mantleofleadership fromherfather. TheyoungIndira'sconcernwithmanaging

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OpeningoftheEameses'exhibition
Nehru: andinterpreting thelegacyofNehruis revealing, becauseitwas partlysucha
HisLife
andHisIndia,
RoyalFestival
Hall, thatwould into her measures ofthe
London,1965.Library
ofCongress
Prints
and preoccupation play misguidedcensorship
Work
Division,
Photographs ofCharles
andRay "Emergency" (1975-77),in whichdemocratic rightsandfreedom ofspeech
LC-E
Eames, 10-650622-A-20
(photograph weresuspendedunderherorder,andcoercivemethodssanctioned
EamesOffice,
LLC) bythestate,
foralmosttwoyears.*7 Nonetheless,sheattended theopeningoftheEameses'
CharlesEamesattheNehru:HisLife
and exhibitionaboutherfather inWashington in herofficial as Indian
HisIndia Union
Carbide capacity
exhibition,
1965,
NewYork
Building, Eames
(photograph Office, primeminister, andwas photographed therewithJacqueline Kennedy,a woman
LLC) whoseownlossin 1963mirrored thatofIndiasgrieving daughter; imageof
the
thetwowomenplayedon theemotionallinksbetweenthemandtheirdynastic
first
families.
TheNehruexhibition finisheditsrunin theEameses* owncity, Los
Angeles;itcameto Indiain 1972,wherepartsofitremainon permanent display
atthePragatiMaidanin NewDelhiandtheNehruCenterin Bombay.
ManyofthedesignaspectsoftheNehruexhibition, thetime-line
especially
andhistoricaleventspanels- laterknownas theEameses'"history walls"-
becamepartofthecouple'ssignature Thepanelsdepictedtheeventsofone
style.
decadeandpresented Nehru'sbiography as intertwinedwiththehistory ofthe
57.SeeEmmaTarlow, Memories:
Unsettling
Narratives new nation-state.
The first
panel,for instance,"The IndiaintoWhich He Was
ofIndia's
Emergency Permanent
(Delhi:
Black,
2003). Born,"beganwiththe 1880s,thenext,"ChildhoodinAllahabad" recounted the

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1890s,andso on,eventually proceeding through suchthemesandeventsas
nationalism, freedom struggle, Nehru'srelationship to MahatmaGandhi,satya-
graha (or thedoctrine ofnonviolence) , theattainment ofindependence, andthe
Non-AlignedMovement. Theresultwas an epicyetlinearstorythatinevitably
lefttheviewerin aweofNehru'sheroicleadership. Oddly,in theirstoryof
India'sNehru,theEamesesdidnotdeploymoreadvancedtechnologies usedin
theirotherexhibitions, likevideo,film,or multiscreen projection, a greatirony
giventhetechnological aspirations oftheNehruvian vision.Instead,Charles
to
argued keep theexhibition simple "for Nehru /Gandhi's sake,"an assumption
thatcollapsedthenotoriousgulfbetweenthetwoleaderson thequestionof
technology, whilealsomounting a largeinstallation about"Indianweddings"
atthepointin thehistory wallrecording Nehru'smarriage.58 Herethecouple
seemedunableto containtheirfascination withtheexoticritualsofan Indian
wedding,andtheysurrendered to theseductions ofan anthropological gaze.
In hindsight,itis additionally meaningful thatin 1965theEameses'Nehru
memorialexhibition didnotfinda homeatMoMAin NewYork.Itwas mounted
insteadattheUnionCarbideBuildingon ParkAvenue, fromJanuary to March
196^.TheEameses'exhibition was undoubtedly a public-relations coupfor
UnionCarbide,theAmerican corporation thathadrecently joinedIndia'sgov-
ernment-sponsored "GreenRevolution" byestablishing fertilizer
factories
the
throughout country. Needless to say,public relations would never againbe
thesameforthecompanyafterthedisastrous 1984accidentatUnionCarbides
pesticideplantin Bhopal,wherefivetonsoftoxicgasseepedoutoftheplantin
a thirty-minute period,killingalmostfourthousand peopleandpermanently
injuring tensof thousands more. While much more can be saidaboutthiscatas-
-
trophe widelyregarded as theworstindustrial accidentin history - itsymbol-
izesforourpurposestheever- wideninggulfbetweenthemodernizing ideals
oftheNehruvian eraandtherealities unfolding on the ground in India. The
Eamesescouldnothaveanticipated thatUnionCarbidewouldcometo standfor
themostdevastating aspectsofindustrialization andtheIndo-American relation-
ship,or thattheNehruvian dreamenshrined in theirmemorialexhibition might
leadto thenightmare ofUnionCarbidein Bhopal.Indeed,thecoupleseemed
too distracted bythetaskofcommemoration to viewthesignsofcrisisthat
emergedin thewakeofNehru'sdeath.IndiraGandhi,forherpart,soughtref-
uge in herstudywhereshewas reportedly foundduringthisperiod"curledup
in herEameschair.'49 Itis important therefore to further situatethelate1960s
and 1970sin India,in orderto understand andcritically assesswhytheEameses'
hopesforthecountry remainin largepartunrealized, andhow theirliberal
visionofindustrial design has,paradoxically, reemerged in recentyearsto serve
theneedsanddesiresofIndia'sneoliberal turn.
Theperiodfollowing Nehru'sdeathwas markedbya growingclimateof
disaffection withthedreamsofofficial modernization, resultingfromthefailure
ofNehru'seconomicplans,theincreases in population, poverty,andilliteracy,
andtheriseofstudent movements in solidarity withthe 1968generation in
58.Charles
Eames, note,
personal 1972,
January,
EamesPapers, Washington,Europe
ofCongress,
Library and America.Artists and intellectualsin South Asia were particularly
DC,Box45,Folder2. disillusioned bythecontinued catastrophic effects ofpartition in former East
59.Jayakar,
184.TheEameschair
remains
on
inherhouse,
now theIndira
Gandhi Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and, eventually, the crisis of the 1975-77 "Emergency,"
display
Memorial
Museum inDelhi. when,as I mentioned, democratic rightsweresuspendedbyIndiraGandhi,who

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announcedthatsuchstringent measuresmustbe taken"justas bitter pills. . .
administered to a patientin theinterest ofhishealth."60 In 1970J.S. Sandhu,an
earlyadvocateof"inclusive design,"wrotea longreportto CharlesEamesto ask
forhisguidancein navigating whatSandhuviewedas a seriesofvisiblydanger-
ous trends. Theproblem, he stated, was notjusta gapbetweenTheEames Report
anditsimplementation, in parta manifestation of"thefatalism andinertiathat
aredeeplyengrained in Indiansociety," butthatIndiahadatbestachieved
something akin to "symbolic modernization." ForSandhu,sucha conceitwas
epitomized byLe Corbusier's Chandigarh, "themostun-Indianandexpensive of
cities,"whichhadfailedto respondto theneedsoftheruralmasses,andwas a
"sadreflection ofthepriorities andvaluesystems oftheleadership." Thefuture
ofIndiandesign,he argued,wouldbe in a reorganized designprofession com-
mittedto a muchwidersocialdemographic, andin a greater investment in
designeducation"as a matter ofsocialpriority."61 ButtheEamesesdidnotseem
to knowhowto respondto thefailures oftheNehruvian visionor thepleasfor
assistance thatcamethroughout the1970sfromfriends andinstitution-builders
likeJayakar, andAshokeChatterjee attheNID.Meanwhile, trends inAmerica -
likefeminism, Pop art,andtheantiwar -
movement increasingly placedthe
Eameses,withtheirpublicidentity as apolitical andnonideological, on themar-
gins of the avant-garde. Their final exhibition in the United States,The World of
FranklinandJefferson(1971-77),whichthecoupleviewedas theircrowning
achievement andwhichbrought theparadigmofheroicnationalleadership
developed for their Nehru show to thegrandnarrative ofAmerican nationhood,
was also amongtheirleastsuccessful. In an eraofsocialcrisisanddisillusion-
mentwiththeUS government causedbytheVietnam War,thecivilrights move-
ment,andWatergate, theexhibition's corporate sponsorship, alongwithits
populistaccountoftheRevolution andupbeatmessageaboutwestward expan-
sionism,simply did not fly.62
Charlesalso cautioned, in a longletterto theorganizers whentheNehru
showreturned to Indiain the1970s,againstturning theexhibition intosome
"tastelessChamberofCommerce pitch."63 His concern was no doubt a response
to a growingtrendofthetimetowarda commercial orientation forcultural
exhibitions andtheemerging modalities oftheinternational tradefair.Bythe
60.Indira
Gandhi in 25. end ofthe decade, thefirstFestival of India - a spectacular showcase ofIndian
quotedTarlow,
61. Report
from J.S.SandhutoCharlesEames, artin Britain heavily promoted by Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher - inau-
September 16,1970,Eames Papers, of
Library
DC,.Box44,Folder3: gurateda neweraofexhibition culture, botha signanda symptom ofthe
Congress,Washington,
1,3 13. increased competition amongdeveloping nationsin theemerging neoliberal
62.SeeLipstadt,167. 64Therearehintsin thearchivethatthespectacular showcaseof
63.CharlesEames, letter
toPupulJayakar, global economy.
February16,1972, EamesPapers,
Libraryof the Festival of India, with its of
goal imprinting a new eraof "Indo- American
Congress,Washington,DC,Box45,Folder 2:2. as statedbytheEameses'old friend-turned-festival
64.SeeBrianWallis, Nations:
"Selling dialogue," chairperson, Pupul
International
Exhibitions
andCulturalDiplomacy,"Jayakar,65was notthekindofshowCharleswouldhaveliked.Butitis difficult to
inMuseum ed.DanSherman
Culture, andIrit knowwithcertainty due to hisdeathin 1978,whichwas,in thewordsofone
Rogoff(Minneapolis: ofMinnesota
University
Press,
1994). obituary fromthesubcontinent, "an irreparable lossto Indiatoo."66 TheNID in
65.SeePupul Jayakar, Festival
foreword, in Ahmedabad
ofIndia posthumously established an endowed fellowship designaward
and
the United 1985-86
States, (NewYork: Harry
Abrams, 14. in hishonor:itis sometimes referred to in an ironicmanneras the"Eames
1985),
66.TusharBhatt,"AWorking of
Philosopher Chair"in memory ofhispioneering vision.
ThingsPassesAway" September
(obituary), 30, ThisotherEameschair - theNID awardinAhmedabad - is an aptmotiffor
1978,Eames Papers, ofCongress,
Library
Washington,DC,.Box44,Folder 5. thenearlythreedecadesofinvolvement byCharlesandRayEamesin theIndian

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Charles
andRayEamesphotographingtwo subcontinent, untilnow overlooked in thegrowingscholarship on mid-century
women,India,
February of
1965.Library or presentedin thehagiography as an eccentricaside.Yetthe
Prints
andPhotographs Work
Division, modernism,
Congress
andRay
ofCharles LC-E
Eames, 10-650
107-E-
19 Eameses'involvements withIndiaspana remarkable periodofhistorical change,
Eames
(photograph Office,
LLC) andthevariousactivities, and
projects, relationships theyforged providea
glimpseofthesuccessive contexts, mutualdependencies, andcompeting agen-
das thathavecharacterized thecoldwar,decolonization anditsmodernizing
projects,thesocialcrisesofthe 1960sand 1970s,andthebeginnings in the
1980s of the restructuringof the new globaleconomy. TheEameses' internation-
alismwas clearly madepossiblebytheriseofAmerican culturalhegemony in
theworld,which,as SergeGuilbauthasarguedin thecaseofAbstract Expres-
sionism,consolidated itselfin thepostwarperiodin thenewalliancesandvalues
oftheNewYorkartworld.67 AsI suggested attheoutset,however, theexotic
objectscollectedbyCharlesandRayalongthewaydo notmerely represent
anothermomentin modernism s insatiableappetite forthenon-West;norcan
theirpresencebe adequately understood through thelensofan early-twentieth-
century primitivistparadigm. The new world order ofdecolonization thatled
theEamesesto thesubcontinent in thefirst placedramatically transformed the
historical and
equation presented a new horizon of and
agencies possibilities for
and
sovereignty citizenship forthe countries ofAsia andAfrica,in thepostwar
period.In theirresponseto themodernizing projectsoftheNehruvian era,their
humanist commitment to enablingIndia'smodernity, andtheirunevenattempts
to comprehend thevexedquestionsofdesignin thesubcontinent, theEameses
67.SeeGuilbault. in Indiarepresent boththebeginnings ofan eraofUS hegemony, anda setof

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creative aesthetic responses to it,a paradoxthatwas ultimately expressed and
codifiedin theirdesignmanifesto andethicalvisionforthenewrepublic, The
India of
Report 1958.
Morethanfifty yearslater,TheEmes Reporthasacquiredsomething ofthe
statusofscripture in India,anditis frequently citedin theexplosionofcontem-
porarydiscourses surrounding design,in spiteofitssentimental identification
withthevernacular embodiedbyCharles's preoccupation with the Iota.
Thenew
of
visibility design in India is undeniably linked to the centrali tyof new media,
digitaltechnologies, consumerism, andadvertising to theneoliberal economic
revolution thathasmeantan unprecedented expansionoftheconsumer class,
butthathasnevertheless excludedthelargeswathofthepopulationthatremains
in poverty In 2007 thegovernment articulateda newsetofdesignideals,radi-
callydifferent fromthesocialistparadigms oftheNehruvian era,in an official
NationalDesignPolicy, whichpositedas one ofitsmaingoalsthe"globalposi-
tioningandbranding ofIndiandesigns"withintheinternational marketplace.68
Theself-stated ambitionofthepolicyis to "outsource design,"andtopromote
thephrase"Designedin India"as a symbolofinnovation andquality, in contrast
to "Madein India,"whichhintsofcheaplaborandpoorproduction quality. As
one Indianjournalist noted,everyiPodcarriestheinscription "Designed in the
USA,builtin China,"whichunderscores Apple's"justlydeserved reputation for
understanding thevalueofdesignanditsrelevance to corporate strategy."69 In
theareaofdesign,thejournalist argued,Indiashouldaspireto theglobalsuc-
cessoftheiPod,a missionwhichtheEamesesas thearchitects ofIndia'sfirst
policy statement on design would have endorsed. In other words,theproblems
ofAmerican hegemony in designthattheEamesessimultaneously represented
andconfronted duringthe1950spersistin powerful waysin an erain which
designinnovation is increasingly boundup withcorporate strategy andthe
dreamsofUS-ledcapitalism on theworldstage,as symbolized the
by example
oftheiPod.
In contrast to arguments aboutthevalueofdesignforglobaleconomicsuc-
cess,andthereception in India,forinstance, ofRichardFlorida'scontentious,
best-selling books on the economic roleof the "creative class,"70prominent the-
oristsin Indiahavealsoreturned to theEameses'visionofthedesigner as a facil-
itatorwho empowers socialgroupsandmorebroadlyto theirprogram fora
socially conscious design to confront the homogenizing forces of globalization.71
To suchthinkers, theEameses'conception ofdesignas a bridgebetweenthe
traditional andthemodernhasa newurgency andresonance in thefaceofa
growinggulfbetweentheurban,international locationsfordesign,andthe
68.Government ofIndia
PressInformation rural,vernacular basisofIndia'scraft communities. Theypoint,in otherwords,
Bureau, "National
DesignPolicy," release, to a setof
press from The Emes different thanthose
February 8,2007,available
online
athttp://pib. possibilities emerging Report
nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=24647. adoptedas corporate strategy in theinterest ofquality, profit,andtheoutsourc-
69.NitiBhan,"ACompetitive Nation,
byDesign," ingofdesign.How thesevariedusesandabusesoftheEameses'legacyin India
BusinessWeek,December 27,2005.
70.SeeRichard The
Florida, oftheCreative willenhanceor hinderthenation'saspirations
Rise fordesign,or serveto activate the
andHow
Class, It'sTransforming
Work,Leisure, socialconscienceofitspublic,is something thatis continually unfolding and
Community, andEveryday (NewYork:
Life Basic
Books, 2002);Cities
and
theCreative
Class
(New remains of course to be seen.
York:Routledge, andThe
2004); ofthe
Flight In theend,however, thesesortsofconcernscannotbe saidto belongspe-
CreativeClass:
TheNew Global for
Competition to
Talent(NewYork: Collins,
Harper 2005). cifically India. Theypointinsteadto thelargerdilemmasthatHal Fosterhas
71. SeeAshoke 2005.
Chatterjee, linked to the new "politicaleconomyofdesign"in hisself-described diatribe

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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
againstthe"tightconsumerist loop" ofcontemporary design,DesignandCrime.72
ForFoster, theinflation ofdesign,where"everything fromjeansto genesseems
to be regarded as so muchdesign,"hasfollowedthe"spectacular dictates
ofthe
cultureindustry, nottheliberatory ambitions oftheavant-garde," anditappears
to reachitspointofexcessatthemomentofitsglobalization, as in theturnto
thecitiesofAsiabyRemKoolhaas,or theworldwide implicationsoftheBilbao
effect,"likelyto come to your hometown soon."73 My account of Charlesand
Ray Eames in India has been an attempt to situatethesecontemporary processes
withinthelongglobalcareerofdesignitself, andto mapthespecific contours
andlimitsofa dialoguebetweentwoverydifferent Utopianinvestments in mod-
erndesign(i.e.,American andNehruvian) in themiddleoftheprevious century.
Mystudyis byno meansa dismissal oftheEameses,butrather a bidto reposi-
tiontheirsignificance, in thisneglected
atleastpartially, episodeoftheircareer.
Myargument hasbeenthattheEameses'involvements withIndiamakevisiblea
setofhistorical interconnectionsbetweena postwarmodernism andtheparticu-
laritiesofa postcolonial one, which allow us to sketch
a more globalgenealogy
in responseto theneedsofourambiguouspresent.
Mathur
Saloni isassociate ofarthistory
professor attheUniversity
ofCalifornia,
LosAngeles.
Sheis
author
ofIndia Colonial
byDesign: andCultural
History Display ofCalifornia
(University Press, editor
2007),
ofThe Time:
Migrant's Art
Rethinking andDiaspora
History (Yale
University Art
Press/Clark 201I),
Institute,
andcoeditor
(withKavita ofNoTouching,
Singh) Spitting, : Modalities
Praying ofthe inSouth
Museum Asia
(forthcoming, India).
Routledge

72.Foster,
18.
73.Ibid.,
17,19,and42(italics
inoriginal).

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