October 25, 2009
The Talented Stylist Eileen Gray: The Woman Of Modern Design
Even though she may not be as famous as Le Corbusier or Mies van der Rohe, no one could ever misbelieve that Eileen Gray is one of the greatest furniture artists of the modern period. Believed as a chief founder of the Modern design movement, Gray's works for furniture broke the principles of conventional furniture design and created opportunities or other designers to follow.
Born on August 1878 next to the town of Enniscorthy, Ireland, Kathleen Eileen Moray Gray was the youngest child of the well-to-do Scottish-Irish Gray race. Her father, James Maclaren Gray, noticed young Eileen's interest for the arts and often seized her along painting tours in Italy and Switzerland. By the point she was eighteen years old Gray was educated at the Slad School of Fine Art at the University College London but later on moved to the Académie Julian and the Académie Colarossi in Paris when her father passed on in 1900. Eileen Gray sent back to London in 1905, and it was there that she gain knowledge of lacquerwork in Seizo Sugawara, a Japanese lacquer restorer employing in Paris.
Eileen Graycreated several architectural and furniture styles in her career, but most likely the one she is best considered for would be that of the Rue de Lota apartment. In 1917, Gray was assigned by Mathieu Lévy, a boutique possessor who sold fashionable hats, to renovate the interior of her apartment in the Rue de Lota suburb in Paris. It was during this time that Gray completed some of her seminal works, including the Block Screen lacquered wall piece, the Pirogue Sofa, the Bibendum Chair, and the Serpent Chair. By the time the work in was finished in 1921 reviewers immediately honored Gray's work, proclaiming her designs a “triumph of modern living”. supported by the critical and financial triumph of her Rue de Lota project, Gray constructed her individual shop in Paris, termed the Jean Desert, where she could show her [creations|styles}.