Eileen Gray

Bibendum chair by Eileen Gray

E1027 table by Eileen Gray

Early Photograph of Eileen Gray's E-1027 villa. Built between 1926 - 1929.

Eileen Gray (August 9, 1878 – October 31, 1976) was an Irish lacquer artist, furniture designer and architect now well-known for incorporating luxurious lacquer work into the stark International Style aesthetic. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Bibendum chair by Eileen Gray, Source & courtesy of [1], used with permission. ... Bibendum chair by Eileen Gray, Source & courtesy of [1], used with permission. ... Michelin logo Compagnie Générale des Établissements Michelin, based in Clermont_Ferrand, France, is primarily a tire manufacturer. ... E-1027 table by Eileen Gray Source courtesy of [1], used with permission. ... E-1027 table by Eileen Gray Source courtesy of [1], used with permission. ... Image File history File links E1027. ... Image File history File links E1027. ... Year 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1929 (MCMXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 221st day of the year (222nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1878 (MDCCCLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... is the 304th day of the year (305th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1976 Pick up sticks(MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... In a general sense, lacquer is a clear or coloured coating, that dries by solvent evaporation only and that produces a hard, durable finish that can be polished to a very high gloss, and gives the illusion of depth. ... For the UK band, see Furniture (band). ... All Saints Chapel in the Cathedral Basilica of St. ... For other uses, see Architect (disambiguation). ... The Weissenhof Estate in Stuttgart, Germany (1927) The Weissenhof Estate in Stuttgart, Germany (1930) The International style was a major architectural trend of the 1920s and 1930s. ...

Biography

On the 9th of August, 1878, Kathleen Eileen Moray Gray was born into an aristocratic family near Enniscorthy, a small market town in south-eastern Ireland. Gray was the youngest of five children and the family was very wealthy, owning several homes. Her parents, Eveleen Pounden Gray and James Maclaren Gray were of Scottish/Irish descent. Gray’s father, James, was a keen amateur painter and encouraged his daughter to paint too. He took his daughter on painting tours of Italy and Switzerland which was where some of her approach to design evolved. Gray spent most of her childhood living in family homes, either in Ireland or in a nice part of London, South Kensington. Courtesy of her father, in 1898 at the age of twenty, Gray attended classes at the Slade School of Fine Art, where she studied painting. She was one of the very first women to study there. Whilst enrolling there, she made new acquaintances with Jessie Gavin and Kathleen Bruce. In 1900 (the year of her father’s death), Eileen Gray and her mother went to Paris to experience the Exposition Universelle; this was Eileen’s first visit to Paris. The Exposition Universelle was, in 1900, a world’s fair that celebrated the achievements of the past century and hoped to encourage the new work in the next. The main style there was Art Nouveau. Gray was a big fan of the work that Charles Rennie Mackintosh had exhibited there. Soon after this, Gray moved to Paris alongside her friends from the Slade School; Gavin and Bruce. Eileen Gray continued her studies at the Académie Julian and the École Colarossi. For some four of five years after the move, Gray moved back and forth from Paris to Ireland to London, and then in 1905, she settled back down in London as her mother took ill. Eileen Gray made use of her time in London and re-joined the Slade School of Fine Art, but found that her drawing and painting courses were becoming increasingly less satisfying. Gray came across a lacquer repair shop in Soho (an area in the west end of London) where she was intrigued. She asked the shop owner whether he could show her the fundamentals of lacquer work as it had taken her fancy. The owner had many contacts from the lacquer industry and when Gray moved back to Paris in 1906, to the relatively large apartment in Paris where she remained for most of her working life, she met one of them; Sugawara-san. He was Japanese and came from an area that was known for its decorative lacquer work. She found after working with Sugawara-san for four years that she had developed the lacquer disease on her hands, however she persisted in her work and it was not until she was thirty-five that she exhibited her work. When she did however, it was a moderate success. In 1914, when World War I broke out, Eileen and Sugawara-san returned to London together where their lacquering was not at all successful. Had it not been for Gray’s family’s financial support, she and Sugawara-san would have been completely broke. As the end of the war neared, they returned to Paris and Gray was given the job of decorating an apartment on rue de Lota. She designed rugs and lamps for the house and furnished it with lacquered panels and her own designed furniture. It was reviewed by several art critics for many different magazines and most thought it was fantastically innovative and described it as de luxe modern living. Given a boost from the success of the apartment on rue de Lota, Gray opened up a small gallery in Paris solely for exhibiting and selling her work. As she was too timid to be there herself she made sure every aspect of the place looked as good as it could be so there would be some presence of her there anyway. In 1923, she designed the Bedroom-Boudoir for the Monte-Carlo, at the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs, a design show. The reviews were terrible and the French art critics did not like it at all. However, she contributed to the design of the Salon d’Automne and that was praised by Le Corbusier and a well known architect Robert Mallet Stevens. Around this time, she focused on architecture and furniture design. She designed many houses and buildings that looked abstract and then she often designed the furniture for the interior. An architecture critic said “Eileen Gray occupies the centre of the modern movement”; she was slowly starting to become recognized as an established designer and architect. In the late 1920’s and early 1930’s, Gray was involved with the Union des Artistes Modernes which had very well known members. However, Gray was becoming more and more solitary and was involved in little social activity. She designed and furnished herself a new home, Tempe à Pailla, after four years of architectural study and remained there for most of her time and continued her work with keen interest. In 1937, she agreed to assist Le Corbusier in his pavilion at the 1937 Paris Exposition where Gray exhibited her design of a holiday centre. As World War II broke out, Gray remained her own home for the first year of the war until she was forced to evacuate as the violence was too great. She moved inland and after the war it had been discovered that her flat in Saint-Tropez, where she kept all her prized precessions had been blown up and that Tempe à Pailla had been looted. After the War, Gray returned to Paris and led a very reclusive life and seldom made contact with anybody expect her small group of close women friends who she knew from before the war. Now and then, she would begin work on a new project but nothing too major. She was almost completely forgotten by the design industry and became very much out of the picture. From when she was around seventy, she started to lose her sight and hearing, yet when she was eighty, she transformed an old hay-barn into a summer home; she soon moved there and continued to work. Shortly before her death, Gray’s work from over the years was shown in an exhibition in London and her work was remembered fondly by the public. At the very grand age of ninety-eight, Kathleen Eileen Moray Gray died in her apartment on rue Bonaparte in Paris. Throughout her career, she had been very independent and did not often work alongside others. She was quite unique at the time of her life because there were very few female designers around. Today, her work is well recognized and it was not until after her death that her work was truly appreciated.

Increased Notoriety

Shortly thereafter, persuaded by Le Corbusier and Jean Badovici among others, she turned her interests to architecture. In 1924 Gray and Badovici began work on the house E-1027 in Roquebrune, Cap Martin in southern France (near Monaco). The codename stands for the names of the couple: E for Eileen, 10 for Jean (the tenth letter of the alphabet), 2 for Badovici and 7 for Gray. L-shaped and flat-roofed with floor-to-ceiling windows and a spiral stairway to the guest room, E-1027 was both open and compact. Gray designed the furniture as well as collaborated with Badovici on its structure. Her circular glass E-1027 table and rotund Bibendum armchair were inspired by the recent tubular steel experiments of Marcel Breuer at the Bauhaus (who had been inspired, in turn, by Mart Stam). le Corbusier was quite impressed by the house, and built a summer house behind the house. Le Corbusier left his hark on the building in the form of several colourful wall murals. Gray (while overjoyed at Le Corbusiers liking of the house) was greatly disappointed at the murals as they destroyed the stark minimalist walls which she sought. When Le Corbusier died in 1965, he died swimming in the sea directly in front of E-1027. The house is now in poor repair, but plans for its renovation are being prepared by the French government, who have designated it as a French National Cultural Monument. [1]. Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, who chose to be known as Le Corbusier (October 6, 1887 – August 27, 1965), was a Swiss-born architect and writer, who is famous for his contributions to what now is called Modern Architecture. ... Year 1924 (MCMXXIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Eileen Grays E-1027 villa. ... The roofs of Olomouc, Czech Republic. ... Marcel Breuer Marcel Lajos Breuer (May 21, 1902 Pécs, Hungary – July 1, 1981 New York City), architect and furniture designer, was an influential modernist. ... For the British gothic rock band, see Bauhaus (band). ... Mart Stam (1899 - 1986) was a Dutch architect, urban planner, and chair designer. ...

In 1968, a complimentary magazine article quickly grew into an unexpected hit, and the Bibendum chair and E-1027 table went back into production, soon to become modern furniture classics. Following the purchase of her archive in 2002, the National Museum of Ireland at Collins Barracks, Dublin opened a permanent exhibition of her work. On the 8th November 1972, The Doucet sale added to the interest which continues to this day in the 'antiques' of the twentieth century. Grays 'Le Destin' screen was featured in the sale and went for a staggering figure of $36,000. Collectors entered the chase, and Yves Saint Laurent's interest completed the mythification of her image. Year 1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Modern furniture was a tremendous departure from all furniture design that had gone before it. ... Also see: 2002 (number). ... Collins Barracks is a former military barracks in the Arbour Hill area of Dublin, Ireland. ...

Personal life

Gray was bisexual. She mixed in the lesbian circles of the time, to include associations with Romaine Brooks, Gabrielle Bloch and her lover Loie Fuller, the singer Damia, and Natalie Barney [2]. Gray's intermittent relationship between Damia (or Marie-Louise Damien) ended in 1938, after which they never saw each other again, although both lived into their nineties in the same city. Gray also, for some time had an intermittent relationship with Jean Badovici, the Romanian architect and writer [3]. He had written about her design work in 1924 and encouraged her interest in architecture. Their romantic involvement ended in 1932 [4]. In human sexuality, bisexuality describes a man or woman having a sexual orientation to persons of either or both sexes (a man or woman who sexually likes both sexes; people who are sexually and/or romantically attracted to both males and females). ... Romaine Brooks (May 1, 1874 – December 7, 1970), born Beatrice Romaine Goddard, was an American painter who specialized in portraiture and used a subdued palette dominated by the color gray. ... Loie Fuller (Marie Louise Fuller) (January 15, 1862 to January 1, 1928) was a pioneer of both modern dance and theatrical lighting techniques. ... Damia can mean: The Greek goddess of agriculture, health, birth and marriage. ... Nathalie Barney (1876-1972), also known as Natalie Barney, was a American heiress who became well known as the mistress of a literary salon in France. ...

The Bibendum Chair

Eileen Gray’s innovative Bibendum Chair was one of the 20th century’s most recognizable furniture designs. The chair is very much for lounging in and socializing. Its back/arm rest consists of two semi-circular, padded tubes encased in soft leather. The name that Gray chose for the chair, Bibendum, originates from the character created by Michelin to sell tyres. The chair was designed for a milliner; Madame Mathieu Lévy who was a highly successful boutique owner which sold very stylish hats. Lévy had commissioned Gray to re-design her apartment on rue de Lota in Paris. It was hoped to be new and original, with innovative designs. The process took four, painstaking years; from 1917 to 1921. During this time, Eileen Gray created the Bibendum chair along with the interior walls, furnishings, rugs and lamps. With Gray’s disapproval of the moulded walls that had previously been installed, she put up lacquered panels instead. She wanted to create the apartment so that it fulfilled aspirations, suited Lévy’s lifestyle and would go along with any particular mood. The Bibendum Chair was relatively large; its depth approximately 840mm and its height 740mm tall. The visible part of the frame of the Bibendum i.e. the legs, were made of a polished, chromium plated, stainless steel tube. The framing of the actual seat was made of beechwood and there was rubber webbing that was inter-woven across the base of the seat to provide added comfort. The seat, back and arm rests encased in soft, pale leather. Gray made a point of using plain coverings for this particular chair as well as another, the Serpent Chair which was simple, plain red. She also designed the Pirogue Boat Bed which was also completely plain. This was so that the apartment would not look too cluttered or messy and so that the eye would be drawn, first of all, to the tribal art on display. The furniture in the apartment on rue de Lota, in particular the Bibendum Chair, was all extremely comfortable. Today, a full grain leather coated Bibendum Chair would sell for an approximate price of £2300. The chair was designed for the room so that it looked inviting and made you want to sit down in it. As the apartment was being designed for a trendy, modern, young woman, Eileen Gray’s wish was to make it quite alternative and daring. The Bibendum Chair in itself was hardly like anything ever seen before and its originality was quite amazing at the time.

The Bibendum Chair was designed as part of the modernist movement which was completely different to her earlier, more traditional work. She decided to make the change in style to simply make “progress”. The art critics loved the chair and reviews in papers and magazines exclaimed that it was a “triumph of modern living”. Thanks to her great achievement with the Bibendum chair and the other furnishings designed at the apartment on rue de Lota, Gray was given a huge moral boost, so she made the decision of opening up her own gallery in 1922 (see biography). Madame Mathieu Lévy’s commission provided a great financial success for Gray, and thanks to this, she did no longer need to rely on her family's financial support.

External links

• Eileen Gray on irish-architecture.com
• Documentary about Eileen Gray