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Ireland
Elegant, intelligent and independent, Eileen Gray’s nonconformist and brilliant mind led her to a uniquely creative life at the turn of the century in Paris. Eileen Gray spent the years of the First World War in London with Sugawara, and on her return to Paris in 1919 she received her most ambitious decorative commission - the Rue de Lota apartment of Mme Mathieu Lèvy, known professionally as the model Suzanne Talbot.
By 1922 Gray was in a position to open her own gallery, Jean Dèsert, in the Rue du Faubourg St.-Honorè, Paris to display and sell her furniture, lamps, mirrors and carpets, which she found economical to produce in small series of four and five. Although her principal interest was still lacquer work, it was her carpets, woven in her Rue Visconti studio by apprentices supervised by Evelyn Wyld, which sold best. The career of Eileen Gray represents a perfect illustration of the transition from the exotic, individual craftsperson-made objects of the early 1920’s to the purposefully functional architecture and furniture of the Modern Movement. The chairs in the Rue de Lota apartment - salmon silk and orange armchairs, the former with arms carved to resemble the heads of rearing serpents, and a brown lacquered day-bed - were designed to complement the genuine African objects and wild animal skins of Mme Lévy’s collection; the ensemble perfectly captures the luxury and eccentricity of 1920s Paris
In the designs for her own houses, however, Gray used harder, more geometrical forms, industrial materials and a more limited color range. The functional simplicity of chairs such as the Transit chair of 1927, in black leather and chromed steel, is perfectly in keeping with the stark, Modernist interiors, and shows an acceptance of the new trends of the Modern Movement.
Gray now began to create unique furniture, “suited to our existence, in proportion to our rooms and in accordance with our aspirations and feelings.” A brilliant formal play on the concept of asymmetry, Gray’s Nonconformist chair displays her sense of irony, while her famous side table—also asymmetrical—displays the rational principles of modernism that increasingly defined her work.
After 1927, Gray worked primarily as an architect, designing a modernist house for herself for which she also created appropriately minimalist furniture. She also exhibited several architectural projects at Le Corbusier’s “Pavillion des Temps Nouveaux” in 1937. Following that exhibition, Gray’s name faded quietly away until 1970 when collector Robert Walker began buying up her designs. After 30 years of obscurity, the importance of Gray’s work was again acknowledged. Today, she is recognized as one of the finest designers and architects of her day and pieces like the Eileen Gray Table have become icons of modern design.
