Wright Auction

In 1957, a young Robert Staples was studying industrial design at the University of Southern California. Though he already had a position drafting for the aviation industry, Staples was encouraged by his professor to apply for an opening at the firm of Charles and Ray Eames. He was hired part-time, but swiftly moved up through the ranks: Barbara Fahs Charles reported, "By 1961, Staples was the senior three-dimensional designer responsible for the development of Tandem Seating to be introduced at Dulles Airport in 1962." He shares the patent for the design with Charles Eames.

It was while working on the Tandem Seating project that Staples most likely first encountered Ray Eames's rare splint sculptures—only four are known to exist. During promotional filming for Tandem Seating, one of Ray's splint sculptures—which was being used as a prop for the shoot—was broken. Ray and cinematographer Parke Meek scrambled to fix it and Staples, whose desk was near the workshop and paint booth, likely witnessed the commotion. Enchanted by the way Ray had whimsically transformed the functional plywood splint (designed nearly two decades earlier) into a work of art, Staples asked if she would design one for him. Ray obliged, drawing in pencil where Staples himself would make the cuts. Unlike the other known Eames splint sculptures, this example was never painted, and Ray Eames’s original pencil outlines are preserved and visible.

In 1973, Staples moved to Washington DC to launch the firm Staples & Charles with partner Barbara Fahs Charles. Fahs Charles recalls that for years, Staples kept the treasured work high on a shelf in their studio's workshop.

As seasoned veterans of the Office of Charles and Ray Eames, Robert Staples and Barbara Fahs Charles together built a life around good design. Business and life partners, they established their own firm, Staples & Charles Ltd., in Washington D.C. in 1973. As one of the earliest firms to exclusively specialize in design and exhibition planning for museums, Staples & Charles Ltd. quickly expanded from working with the Smithsonian to partnering with national and international institutions.

Robert Staples was hired by Charles and Ray Eames in 1957—part-time, to "carve patterns and sweep the floor," as he put it. Though initially reluctant to join the firm (he was still enrolled at the University of Southern California and already had a job drafting aviation parts), Staples would soon abandon his other pursuit to devote himself wholly to the Office of Charles and Ray Eames. During his first seven years there, furniture projects, such as the Aluminum Group and Tandem Seating, were his primary focus, but after spending weeks in India on a project about Jawaharlal Nehru, he found exhibitions to be a more interesting design challenge. Beginning with Mathematica: A World of Numbers...and Beyond, which opened in 1961 at the Museum of Science and Industry in Los Angeles, Staples worked on each of the major Eames exhibitions.

Barbara Fahs Charles would become a member of the team in 1967, acting as researcher and coordinator for several of the Eameses' later exhibitions, including Photography & The City: The Evolution of an Art and a Science and A Computer Perspective. She has written extensively on museum and exhibition design, including contributions to the Washington Post, Museum News, and Ephemera Journal.