Pioneering designer successful figure, at the epicentre of the Parisian beau monde of the Roaring ’20s and she met many of the starry figures of the times, from Pablo Picasso to Frida Kahlo and James Joyce. Her shop, named Jean Desert, on street, Faubourg Saint-Honoré was the meeting place for the artistic beau monde – the Rothschilds, Nancy Cunard, Elsa Schiaparelli. Originally a purveyor of Art Deco style, by the mid 1920s she became an architect, and a keen advocate of Modernism.
When she moved to Paris, Gray become the first western practitioner of Japanese lacquer, having studied the challenging craft under Japanese master Seizo Sugawara. By the 1920s she was creating original and distinctive lacquered screens and architectural panelling, as well as deluxe Parisian Art Deco furniture.
By 1919 she was designing home interiors and the apartments of the Maharajah of Indore, including society hostess Juliette Levy, in Rue de Lota.
The furniture in the Rue de Lota apartment included some of the designs that remain her best-known, including the Bibendum Chair – a take on the famous Michelin Man mascot, with tyre-like shapes on a chromed steel frame – and the Pirogue day bed, gondola-shaped, with a patinated bronze lacquer finish.
In the mid-to-late 1920s, Gray started to advocate of pared-back Modernism, and became involved in architecture, learning technical drawing. She began work on several projects with architect Jean Badovici. Together with him she created the Villa E-1027, in Roquebrune Cap-Martin in the south of France.
The white cuboid, sitting high on a cliff overlooking the sea based on the principles of new architecture that had been set out by Le Corbusier – open-plan, the house is raised on pillars and has horizontal windows, an open façade and a roof accessible by stairs.
When Gray designed her own Modernist house, she put into practice her idea that a designer should be guided by “human needs” and that “the art of the engineer” was not enough. “A house is not a machine” is the most frequently quoted remark by Gray, a comment that was in direct opposition to Le Corbusier’s famous phrase in his 1927 manifesto: “A house is a machine for living in”.
Badovici himself wrote in 1924 in l’Architecture Vivante, that Gray’s designs revealed “an atmosphere of boundless plasticity, where different perspectives meld, where each object is subsumed into a mysterious, living unity. Space itself is for Eileen Gray just another material that can be transformed and molded depending on the needs of the décor; she allows herself an infinite number of possibilities.”
For example, window screens she designed specifically for E-1027 open and close using a system of sliding shutters so they could be adjusted throughout the day depending on sunlight.
Gray was a designer who defied convention and easy categorisation, but always maintained an interest in the feel and effect of materials, and her furniture engaged directly with the senses, in a way that set her apart. She replied to the needs of the people with designs for fixed and mobile furniture that glides, slides, pivots, and serves many purposes simultaneously.
She wrote: “The interior plan should not be the incidental result of the façade; it should lead to a complete harmonious, and logical life.” Her ‘camping’ style furniture was functional and lightweight, her elegant armchairs geometric but luxuriously comfortable.
By 1930 Gray more or less stopped creating work, and was almost completely forgotten. But in 1970s She was rediscovered again, and since then her work has been widely acclaimed.
It is hugely sought after – in 2009, her Dragons armchair was sold at auction in Paris for $28.3m, a record for 20th-Century decorative art.
Source: A home ‘where body and soul can rest’, BBC
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| Jean Desert source: pinterest, christinag123 |
When she moved to Paris, Gray become the first western practitioner of Japanese lacquer, having studied the challenging craft under Japanese master Seizo Sugawara. By the 1920s she was creating original and distinctive lacquered screens and architectural panelling, as well as deluxe Parisian Art Deco furniture.
 |
| Screen prototype, 1918, made by Eileen Gray source: www.bbc.com |
By 1919 she was designing home interiors and the apartments of the Maharajah of Indore, including society hostess Juliette Levy, in Rue de Lota.
The furniture in the Rue de Lota apartment included some of the designs that remain her best-known, including the Bibendum Chair – a take on the famous Michelin Man mascot, with tyre-like shapes on a chromed steel frame – and the Pirogue day bed, gondola-shaped, with a patinated bronze lacquer finish.
 |
| Roquebrune-Cap-Martin villa, featuring Gray’s Bibendum chair source: www.bbc.com |
In the mid-to-late 1920s, Gray started to advocate of pared-back Modernism, and became involved in architecture, learning technical drawing. She began work on several projects with architect Jean Badovici. Together with him she created the Villa E-1027, in Roquebrune Cap-Martin in the south of France.
 |
| photo taken by Gray herself. Jean Badovici with Le Corbusier and his wife at Villa E1027 source: pinterest, 100blank001 |
The white cuboid, sitting high on a cliff overlooking the sea based on the principles of new architecture that had been set out by Le Corbusier – open-plan, the house is raised on pillars and has horizontal windows, an open façade and a roof accessible by stairs.
When Gray designed her own Modernist house, she put into practice her idea that a designer should be guided by “human needs” and that “the art of the engineer” was not enough. “A house is not a machine” is the most frequently quoted remark by Gray, a comment that was in direct opposition to Le Corbusier’s famous phrase in his 1927 manifesto: “A house is a machine for living in”.
 |
| Villa, named E-1027, in Roquebrune Cap-Martin in the south of France source: www.bbc.com |
Badovici himself wrote in 1924 in l’Architecture Vivante, that Gray’s designs revealed “an atmosphere of boundless plasticity, where different perspectives meld, where each object is subsumed into a mysterious, living unity. Space itself is for Eileen Gray just another material that can be transformed and molded depending on the needs of the décor; she allows herself an infinite number of possibilities.”
For example, window screens she designed specifically for E-1027 open and close using a system of sliding shutters so they could be adjusted throughout the day depending on sunlight.
 |
| The E-1027 villa's wide terrace was designed using a system of sliding shutters source: www.bbc.com |
Gray was a designer who defied convention and easy categorisation, but always maintained an interest in the feel and effect of materials, and her furniture engaged directly with the senses, in a way that set her apart. She replied to the needs of the people with designs for fixed and mobile furniture that glides, slides, pivots, and serves many purposes simultaneously.
She wrote: “The interior plan should not be the incidental result of the façade; it should lead to a complete harmonious, and logical life.” Her ‘camping’ style furniture was functional and lightweight, her elegant armchairs geometric but luxuriously comfortable.
 |
| Transat chair, 1930. The deck chair generally found on a transatlantic cruise liner source: www.bbc.com |
By 1930 Gray more or less stopped creating work, and was almost completely forgotten. But in 1970s She was rediscovered again, and since then her work has been widely acclaimed.
 |
| Dragons armchair source: pinterest, homevanities |
It is hugely sought after – in 2009, her Dragons armchair was sold at auction in Paris for $28.3m, a record for 20th-Century decorative art.
Source: A home ‘where body and soul can rest’, BBC
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