2008 42c Eames, Spinning Tops Design

U.S. #4333i
Charles and Ray Eames
Scene from “Tops”

Issue Date: June 17, 2008
City: Santa Monica, CA

Designers of modern furniture, houses, fabrics, exhibits, and more, Charles and Ray Eames also wove their design philosophies into filmmaking. 

Charles began making films while at Cranbrook Art Academy.  After he and Ray married, the couple moved to California.  There, the Eames expanded an interest in photography to include filmmaking.  Together, they produced more than 100 films, ranging in length from one to thirty minutes.  Movie topics included mathematics, toys, science, art, and a training film for the Clown College of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus.  Their first three-minute black and white Tops movie was created with just one week’s notice.  It premiered in 1957 on a Los Angeles television show, Stars of Jazz.  A second seven-minute-long Tops movie was filmed in color and featured people from around the world playing with tops.  Spinning together in time to improvisational jazz small tops, large tops, inexpensive tops, and rare, hand-carved tops were all presented as equals, so each could be viewed with uniform admiration.

In 2008, the Eames Spinning Tops were featured on a 42¢ stamp, one of a pane of 16 issued by the U.S. Postal Service to honor the contributions of Charles and Ray Eames to American design.