Alongside Eileen Gray, within the Modern Movement in Architecture, we find pioneering women architects and designers of the time: Truus Schröder, co-author, together with Gerrit Rietveld, of the famous Schröeder House, and Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, with her extensive work in social housing and her obsession with making it easier for women to work at home so that they could have more free time. Lilly Reich taught at the Bauhaus School and is co-author with Mies Van der Rohe of works of architecture and furniture; the Finnish Elissa Mäkiniemi; the Danish Ragna Grubb, interested in social housing; Charlotte Perriand in France or the Sino-American Anne Tyng, co-author with Louis Khan of the most significant buildings of the Khan office in the 1950s in the USA, among others.
Eileen Gray
Enniscorthy, Irlanda, 09-08-1878 ‖ París, Francia 31-10-1976
Period of activity: From 1913 until 1970
Geographical classification: Europe > Ireland
Socio-cultural movements
Late modern period / Contemporary period > Artistic movements since the end of the 19th century > Rationalist architecture / Modern movement
Groups by dedication
Technologists > Architects
Technologists > Object designers
Context of feminine creation
Review
Eileen Gray's contributions to the world of design and architecture are clearly visionary. However, until almost the end of the 1960s her work remained in oblivion. It was the critic Joseph Rykwert who put Eileen Gray in her rightful place by publishing some of her achievements in Domus magazine in 1967. From this moment on, in the 70s and 80s, she began to become more and more acclaimed and her works increasingly exhibited, obtaining unexpected prices at auctions.
Gray's legacy spans eight decades of creative output, her achievements in drawing, design, architecture, furniture making, lacquering technique, among others, represent a true feat.
Justifications
Biography
Kathleen Eileen Moray was born in 1878 into an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family. Her mother, Lady Eveleen Pounden, changed her surname to Gray in 1893 when she inherited a peerage and became Baroness Gray. Her father was James McLaren Smith, a painter.
Towards the end of 1898 she enrolled in drawing at the Slade School of fine Arts in London and during visits to the Victoria & Albert Museum she developed an admiration for Asian lacquer work.
In 1902, she settled temporarily in Paris with some friends to continue her drawing studies at the École Colarossi, and, in 1906, she moved permanently to a flat in rue Bonaparte, which she still occupied in the 70s.
She learned the technique of Japanese lacquering with the Japanese craftsman Seizo Sugawara and opened a workshop where she exhibited objects and furniture that she designed and made herself.
In 1913, Gray consolidated her reputation as a representative of the Art Deco movement after her exhibition at the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs in Paris.
In 1919, she received her first commission for a complete project and designed everything: the wall panelling, decoration, lighting, furniture and carpets. It is here that she managed to introduce her most interesting innovation to date, the black lacquered block screens, thus formalising a combination of sculpture, architecture and furniture.
In May 1922, Gray opened the Galerie Jean Désert, at 217 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, to sell her work and occasionally exhibit pieces by other artists. This gave her the opportunity to work in collaboration with friends such as Sugawara and Evelyn Wyld, who made rugs and carpets.
In the mid-twenties she studied architectural drawing and began her practice as a self-taught architect, but tried to keep it a secret out of shame.
During the 1920s and 1930s she became one of the leading exponents of the revolutionary new theories of design and construction.
Her architectural works, the houses E.1027 (1926-1929) - a summer residence to share with Jean Badovici, by the sea in the south of France, and Tempe à Pailla (1932-1934), a multi-purpose space designed for living and working, in Castellar, are considered to be true works of incomparable architectural quality, achieved through an integral conjunction of all architectural aspects, both interior and exterior.
She became more famous as an interior and furniture designer, although after the Second World War she gradually lost this fame. It was only in the 1970s that she regained this fame when designers and art historians rediscovered her work and disseminated it.
Gray remained active well into her 90s, working up to 14 hours a day organising her various furniture designs and projects. On 31 October 1976, Eileen Gray died in Paris at the age of 98.
Works
Spanish
There is not a complete list of her works available as many of the models and graphic documentation were destroyed during the Second World War. Those known to exist are:
Architecture:
1919-24: Apartment in rue de Lota, one of the most memorable Art Deco interior designs, Paris
1921-24: Holiday home, Samois-sur-Seine
1922: Galerie Jéan Desert, Paris
1923: House based in Villa Moissi byAdolf Loos (project), unspecified
1926: House for an engineer (project)
1926-32: Battachon's/Renaudin's House, Vézelay
1927-31: Badovici's house, Vézelay
1927-32: House for an artist, (1927-32), Vézelay
1927-31: Zervos House, Vézelay
1926-29: E-1027 House (with Badovici), Roquebrune/Cap Martin, Alpes-Maritimes
1930: Gray Apartment, Paris
1929-31: Badovic's apartment, Paris
1931-34: Tempe à Pailla, Castellar (Alpes-Maritimes)
1933-34: House for two sculptors (project), unspecified
1930: House in Boulevard des Madeleines (project), Nice
1936-37: Holiday and leisure centre (project), unspecified
1920-1937: Exposition pavilion (project), (Paris)
1940: Beach house (project), Casablanca
1940: Garage in Tullerías (project), Paris
1954-61: Lou Pérou, Saint-Tropez
Design:
1919: Satellite lamp, Apartment in rue Bonaparte, Paris
1920: Canapé pirogue, Apartment in rue de Lota, Paris
1925: Folding screen
1927-29: Transat Chair, E-1027 House
1927-29: Bedside table, E-1027 House
1927-1929: Bibendum armchair, E-1027 House
1926-29: Satellite mirror, E-1027 House
1930-31: Perforated metal screen, Badovici's Apartment, Paris
1934: Stool
1932: Coffee table, Tempe à Pailla Castellar (Alpes-Maritimes)
1932: Extendable cabinet, Tempe à Pailla Castellar (Alpes-Maritimes)
Bibliography
Hernández Gálvez, Alejandro. “Algunas Luces de Gray”, en Arquine, <https://www.arquine.com/algunas-luces-de-gray/>
(21/11/2021)
circA RQ, <https://circarq.wordpress.com/2016/12/05/eileen-1878-1976/>
(21/11/2021)
Marciani, Florencia. “Eileen Gray 1878-1976”, en Un dia una Arquitecta (en red, <https://undiaunaarquitecta.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/eileen-gray-1878-1976/>)
(21/11/2021)
Colomina, Beatriz, “La obsesión de Le Corbusier con E.1027”, en Fundación Juan March, <https://youtu.be/Gh8qHGXOSos>
(18/11/2021)
Didactic approach
Visual and plastic arts
Design
Architecture
Art