"We never collected anything just as collectors, but because something was inherent in the piece that made it seem like a good idea to be looking at."
- Ray Eames

Charles and Ray Eames surrounded themselves in their legendary Eames House with their own designs and an extensive collection of folk art, as well as other small objects found on their travels, in nature and in everyday life. Almost everything they collected was related to aspects of design and form. The Eameses organized and decorated their living space with great seriousness and tremendous joy, making the Eames House an ever-changing collage, a reflection of their life.

A prominent feature of the Eames collection was a huge wooden whale over six & half feet in length, an anonymous work of North American folk art. Charles and Ray Eames were exceptionally fond of the painted object: it occupied a permanent place in the Eames Office and was also used in photo shoots. The whale first appeared in historical pictures in 1952 when Charles and Ray Eames furnished and decorated a Herman Miller showroom in Los Angeles. In that same year it was also photographed in the on-site studio at the Eames House, and later again in 1955 for the first photo shoot by Charles Eames of the newly designed Eames Lounge Chair. This smaller-scale reproduction of the Eames House Whale by Vitra is crafted from ash wood and painted by hand.