Charles and Ray Eames' films came out in 2005 as a boxed set of six dvd's, published by Image Entertainment.

This one shows the making of an Eames fibre glass chair.

Yesterday, the Ingmar Bergman Estate was sold, what a triumph for Bukowskis Auctions! Bidders from 116 countries bought furniture, art, film awards and ordinary tableware for three times the estimate, in some cases 100 times the evaluation. Amazing! This is the first celebrity sale in Sweden, and I can only compare it to the YSL sale last winter in Paris which also gained attention from all over the world.

The most expensive item, was also expected to sell at a high price. The hammer price for the chess-game sculptured for "The seventh seal", was 1 million SEK.

 I placed a written bid on this anonymous sculpture, but somebody raised my bid 31 times!

 Ingmar Bergman portrait by Irving Penn 1964

The upcoming weekend, Bukowski's Auctions in Stockholm will open the viewing of the master director Ingmar Bergman's personal effects. The auction, initiated by Bergman’s family, will be held in accordance with Ingmar Bergman’s last wish, expressed in his will:

- “This is my wish and no discussion or emotional tumult must come as a result.”

The interest in obtaining personal effects of Ingmar Bergman is expected to be large. Several pieces of interesting furniture are up for auction, among these Ingmar Bergman’s desk, designed by Carl Malmsten, where he wrote several of his scripts. In his possesion is also an Eames' "Lounge chair with ottoman", Hille edition. Of special interest is a black and white Bergman portrait, photographed by Irving Penn in 1965, selected as auction-catalogue cover. Among the notable art is also a lithograph portraying Strindberg, signed Edvard Munch.

A key item is of course Ingmar Bergman’s magic lantern. Furthermore there is a decorative figurehead, the prime source of inspiration for the production-company Cinematograph’s logotype, also featured in the movie Persona.

Carl Malmsten "Arkitekten", writing desk

Charles & Ray Eames "Lounge chair"

The Eames House in Pacific Palisades, California, celebrated its 60th birthday a few days ago. The sophisticated prefabricated structure dazzled architects and designers at the time, and still does today. The Eameses created an exceptionally beautiful place to live and work. I have not yet met one single person who has been there and hasn’t fallen in love with it. I visited the villa seven years ago, and I would love to go there again some day.

It took just one-and-a-half days for eight workers to build the frame from 11 tons of steel. The walls were made from prefabricated panels, and the windows were of a type usually used in factories. The staircase was ordered from a marine supplies catalogue. Simple materials at a low cost, but this prefab house is still shimmering.

The house was the Eameses’ most personal project, and the purest expression of their design sensibility. The couple met in 1940 at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, where Charles was a teacher, and Ray a student. They married the following year, and settled in Los Angeles. From a small studio in their apartment, they produced their first commercial success, the now world famous plywood leg splint for the U.S. Army, using materials that Charles had smuggled home from his day job building movie sets for MGM. They went on to design furniture that, as The Washington Post once put it, changed the way “the 20th century sat down.”

The Eames House is preserved by the Eames Foundation as a National Historic Landmark.

Happy Birthday!