Born in Finland, Eero Saarinen (1910-1961) emigrated at the age of thirteen to the United States of America in 1923. He grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where he took courses in sculpture and furniture design, established a close relationship with fellow students Charles and Ray Eames, and also became good friends with Florence Knoll (then Schust).
Criticized in his own time for having no identifiable style, Saarinen developed a remarkable range of work, which depended on colour, form and materials. Saarinen showed a marked dependence on innovative structures and sculptural forms, but not at the cost of pragmatic considerations.
He moved back and forth freely between the International Style and Expressionism, utilizing a vocabulary of curves and cantilevered forms, some of which have remained in production and became twentieth-century furniture icons.