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From 1941 to 1978, this husband-wife powerhouse brought unique talents to their partnership. He was an architect by training; she was a painter and sculptor. Together their work helped shape the second half of the 20th century and remains culturally vital and commercially popular today. Best known for their beautiful and functional, yet inexpensive furniture, most notably their signature molded plywood “Eames chair,” Charles and Ray’s influence on significant events and movements in post-World War II American life – from the development of modernism to the rise of the computer age – is less widely understood.

The Architect and the Painter crafts a fascinating, complex blueprint of two great American artists and provides a candid view of their emotional lives as they apply their genius to practical problems and innovation. The film draws extensively from a virgin cache of archival material, visually stunning films, love letters, photographs, and artifacts produced in mind-boggling volume during the hyper-creative epoch of the Eames Office. Critics may argue about how to delineate Charles and Ray’s respective roles in their prodigious design output, but American Masters reveals how they and the Eames Office designers actually dealt with questions of authorship and control. Interviews with Charles’s daughter Lucia, his grandson Eames Demetrios, Eames Office designers, director/screenwriter Paul Schrader, TED founder Richard Saul Wurman, noted architect Kevin Roche, design historians, and others guide viewers on an intimate voyage through the “Eames Era,” shining a light on the genuine legacy of their design – that which elevated aesthetic refinement and functionality to a higher plane.

The Eameses applied the same process of inquiry to large-scale exhibitions and their quirky, beautiful films, which pushed the envelope for communicating complex ideas to mass audiences. The Architect and The Painter tours their landmark house in the Pacific Palisades and incorporates clips from their films (“Tops”) and exhibitions for clients like IBM (“Powers of Ten”), Westinghouse, Polaroid, and the U.S. government (“The World of Franklin and Jefferson”). The technique known as “information overload,” was one of the most lasting Eamesian innovations, as seen in 1959’s Cold War project “Glimpses of the USA,” featuring thousands of images of American life projected simultaneously on seven enormous screens.

“This is a particularly personal project for me,” says Susan Lacy, series creator and executive producer of American Masters, “because I had the great privilege of knowing Ray and Charles Eames. They introduced me to the concept of design through their magical, whimsical and beautiful work – their artistic vision affected everything they touched. I am thrilled to have these true masters as part of American Masters.” This year the series earned its eighth Emmy® Award for Outstanding Primetime Non-Fiction Series in 11 years.  American Masters is a production of THIRTEEN for WNET, the parent company of THIRTEEN and WLIW21, New York’s public television stations, and operator of NJTV. For nearly 50 years, WNET has been producing and broadcasting national and local documentaries and other programs to the New York community.

Charles & Ray Eames: The Architect and the Painter is produced by Quest Productions and Bread and Butter Films. The film is co-directed by producers Jason Cohn and Bill Jersey. Don Bernier is editor. James Franco is narrator with narration written by Jason Cohn. Camille Servan-Schreiber is co-producer and Arwen Curry is associate producer and archivist. Michael Bacon composed the musical score. Shirley Kessler is executive producer. Susan Lacy is the series creator and executive producer of American Masters. This program is made possible with major funding from The National Endowment for the Humanities and The IBM corporation. Additional funding for this program is provided by The National Endowment for the Arts, The Renate, Hans and Maria Hofmann Trust, OXO, and the Beverly Willis Architectural Foundation.

American Masters is made possible by the support of the National Endowment for the Arts and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding for American Masters is provided by Rosalind P. Walter, The Blanche & Irving Laurie Foundation, Rolf and Elizabeth Rosenthal, Cheryl and Philip Milstein Family, Jack Rudin, Jody and John Arnhold, Vital Projects Fund, The André and Elizabeth Kertész Foundation, Michael & Helen Schaffer Foundation, and public television viewers.

1883
José Clemente Orozco is born on November 23 in Zapotlan el Grande, Mexico, to Ireneo Orozco, a businessman, and Maria Rosa, a homemaker and amateur singer. A few years later, the family moves to Mexico City, where he takes night classes at the famed San Carlos Academy of Art.

1898
Parents send him to the countryside to become an agricultural engineer. Contracts rheumatic fever and returns home with a heart condition. Studies architecture at the National Preparatory School.

1903
Father dies suddenly of typhus. Orozco quits school and begins a series of odd jobs to support his mother and two siblings. Works as an architectural draftsman, as well as hand-tinting postmortem portraits.

1904
Mixing chemicals to make fireworks to sell on Mexican Independence Day, Orozco accidentally sets off an explosion. His left hand and eye are injured, but due to the holiday, he is not attended at a hospital for a few days. Gangrene sets in and his hand and wrist must be amputated to save his life.

1910
Mexico celebrates 100 years of independence from Spain with lavish festivities, including an official exhibition of Spanish art. The irony is not lost on young Mexican artists, who set up a counter exhibition like the French Salon des Refusés years earlier. It is an unexpected success with the public.

1911
Constitutionalists force dictator Porfirio Diaz out of office. Francisco Madero is elected president, but Victoriano Huerta stages a coup and murders him. A bloody struggle amongst political factions will last for a decade. Due to his disability, Orozco escapes conscription and works as a caricaturist for various opposition newspapers.

1916
First solo exhibition opens, “The House of Tears,” featuring paintings of Mexico City’s red light district. Most critics ignore or attack the exhibit.

1917-19
Travels to the U.S. in search of better opportunities. At the Texas border, customs officials destroy two thirds of his early work because of their “immoral” character. He lives in San Francisco and New York City and makes a living painting cinema posters and plastic Kewpie dolls.

1923
Mexico’s new revolutionary government begins an ambitious literacy campaign that includes mural painting in public buildings. Hired to paint walls at the National Preparatory School, but is forced out after students deface his murals. Later completes the 3-story mural cycle to wide acclaim.

1927
Leaves his wife and children and returns to New York City where he witnesses the “Crash” of 1929. Paints the economic and social devastation of the Great Depression. American journalist Alma Reed becomes his agent and Orozco exhibits widely.

1930
Commissioned by Pomona College in Claremont, California to paint a mural in the student cafeteria. Paints Prometheus, the first true fresco ever painted in the U.S. The following year, paints murals at the New School for Social Research.

1932-34
Hired by Dartmouth College in New Hampshire to paint murals in the campus library. Joined by his wife and three children. Creates the 24-panel The Epic of American Civilization, which evokes controversy and praise. David Alfaro Siqueiros’ mural in Los Angeles and Diego Rivera’s mural at Rockefeller Center are both destroyed by offended patrons.

1934-39
President Roosevelt establishes the WPA’s Federal Arts Projects, which hires artists to paint murals in hundreds of government buildings throughout the United States. Returns to Mexico and paints his best-known works, including murals in Guadalajara’s government palace and university and the Hospicio Cabañas. Known as the “Sistine Chapel of the Americas,” the Hospicio features Orozco’s magnum opus, the Man of Fire.

1940
Commissioned by New York City’s Museum of Modern Art to create the centerpiece for its exhibition Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art. Paints Dive Bomber and Tank, an indictment of the impending conflagration of WWII. Paints murals in the library of Jiquilpan, Mexico.

1941
Paints a daring critique of the judicial system at Mexico’s Supreme Court. Time magazine reports the outcry demanding their removal, but the murals are protected. Paintings and prints are exhibited in museums throughout the United States, including Brooklyn and Philadelphia.

1943
Meets and falls in love with Gloria Campobello, the prima ballerina of the Mexico City Ballet and designs sets, costumes and posters for the ballet. Elected as fellow to the Colegio de Mexico, an elite circle of intellectuals and artists.

1944
Listed in Who’s Who in America and begins painting The Apocalypse in Mexico City’s Church of Jesus of Nazareth. It is his most complex mural.

1946
Leaves his family and lives in New York City with Gloria Campobello. Exhibits and is reviewed in the national press, but creates few paintings. After Gloria abandons him, returns to Mexico.

1947
Illustrates John Steinbeck’s The Pearl, judges an art contest with Walt Disney, and works with UNESCO. Mexico honors him with a major retrospective.

1948
Paints his only outdoor mural, Allegory of the Nation, at Mexico’s National Teachers College, featured in Life magazine. He creates Metaphysical Landscape and other abstract works.

1949
Completes mural at Guadalajara’s Legislators Assembly. While painting a public housing mural, he dies of heart failure at the age of 65.