Eileen Gray
(1878 - 1976)
After having, in her youth, attended design courses at the “Slade School”, Eileen Gray worked in the studio of the painter D. Charles specialising in the use of oriental lacquers. She moved to Paris in 1902 where she continued her studies and embarked on the career of an interior decorator.
After some years she was noticed by the great couturier Doucet at an exhibition of interior design, he commissioned her to furnish his house; as some years later the fashion designer Suzanne Talbot would also do for her villa in the Rue de Lota.
Having become a furniture designer Eileen Gray inaugurated the “Jean Desert” Gallery in 1922, where she put on sale her production consisting of screens and lamps. She attracted adverse criticism from the Parisian press, but she was appreciated by the Dutch “De Stijl” group.
After four years of intense study and following the suggestions of Gropius, Stevens and Le Corbusier with great courage she decided to move into the architectural field, at that time the exclusive prerogative of men.
She built one of her houses at the Roquebrune on the Mediteranean coast, it was typified by devices which were practical and clever, but also witty.
To be remembered among Eileen Gray’s subsequent designs are the house for an engineer, the house for two sculptors, a tubular holiday house, a cultural and social centre and a tourist centre, however these designs were not favoured by fortune and remained unbuilt. In spite of this, Eileen Gray continued into her old age to think of new designs and experiments with new materials.
It was only a little before her death that an exhibition at the Paris Museum of Dhecorative Arts gave full merit to her work and personality.