Masters of design
Much has been said and written about the great masters of design and architecture of the XNUMXth century. But what about the teachers? Because there were, there were, although almost always blurred, forgotten and in the shadow of male figures. Ray Eames, Charlotte Perriand, Aino Aalto, Lilly Reich… and before them, Eileen Gray, the great precursor.
Gray died in Paris in 1976 with 98 years old, that began in the turbulent and creative first decades of the XNUMXth century, and later intercepted by two world wars. All her biographies agree that she was a woman free, independent, willful and highly sensitive. Its pieces of furniture – tables, armchairs, sofas, lamps, cabinets and rugs – are today safely collected by the German firm. ClassiCon, sole licensee of his legacy,
But Eileen Gray's extensive career is dotted with ups and downs and surprising stories, vital and professional ups and downs, which led her to seclude herself in her home. Paris apartment the last years of his life in a fog of oblivion. Through her designs, both furniture and architectural, we will reveal the life of this nonconformist and unique figure.
A cultured and independent young woman
Born in Ireland in 1878 from an aristocratic family, the turning point was the trip to Paris he took with his mother to visit the Universal Exhibition of 1900. Upon his return to London, he began studying design at the Slade School of Fine Arts and, thanks to his visits to the Victoria & Albert Museum, he discovered the asian lacquer pieces being dazzled by that ancient technique. Thus begins an era of experimentation with lacquer applied to modern designs.
At this stage he meets Jessi Gavin, his first love, with whom he travels to Paris on 1902 to complete his studies and enter the Julian Academy of Fine Arts. Gray never hid his bisexuality and, in Paris, he felt the freedom necessary to settle in and freely live his creativity. In 1906 he moved into his apartment in the Bonaparte street, where he would live until his death in 1976.
Left: “Fauteuil Transatlantique” chair, designed by Eileen Gray for the Jean Desert Gallery, 1925 -1930, Paris. Right: 'S' Chair, 1938.
In those early years, he traveled to Morocco and the United States, experiences that were extremely enriching for his later creations. In 1907, he meets the Japanese master, Seizo Sugawara, who works with her on her lacquer pieces, thus starting a collaboration that will last more than twenty years.
The couturier Jacques Doucet It had a very relevant role in his professional development, since his house was one of the first interior design projects he carried out, which allowed him to become known and rub shoulders with Parisian society between 1913-14. Gray adhered to the taste of the time, where he prioritized art deco opulence with Chinese influences, a style that a few years later he would abandon for a more rationalist and functional line.
The house of Madame Mathieu-Lévy
En 1917, is in charge of furnishing the apartment Madame Mathieu-Lévy on the Rue de Lota in Paris, one of the best and most sensational examples of French decoration of the 20s. The equipment took Eileen Gray a few five years and, among other things, endowed it with panels for the wall lacquered in black and silver, with a lavish bed-lounger shaped like a canoe. Another of the most sumptuous elements was the Lota sofa, with lush cushions and lacquered sides in various colors. Eileen Gray liked it so much that she later ordered a second copy built for her own home.
Iconic Eileen Gray Pieces
Many of the pieces he designed for this apartment have become design icons coveted by collectors. We will mention two of them: the Dragons armchair, which was sold in 2009 for the incredible amount of 21.905.000 euros, and became, at that time, the design object most expensive ever sold in an auction. On the other hand, the Bibendum armchair It is a unique design, harmonious despite its size. Eileen Gray ironically named it after the Michelin man. The structure of leather It is sewn so that they look like tires. The inner polyurethane pads with polyester filling give it a spongy appearance that also makes it extremely comfortable.
Eileen Gray's famous lacquer screens
The screen Brick Screen It is one of his best-known creations. He experimented with various panel dimensions and finishes. More than a simple room divider, this screen, of sober elegance, is conceived as a sculpture, with fixed and mobile panels lacquered by hand, layer upon layer, in a process that lasts several weeks. This famous piece, coveted by collectors and manufactured in a limited edition, is part of the permanent design collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
steel tube furniture
The interior designs by Elieen Gray They resulted in a large number of furniture designs made specifically for those environments. Gray was extremely perfectionist and punctilious, and believed that furniture should be personalized to its user. Between 1921 and 1930, Gray and Jesse Wyld opened a store-showroom under the male pseudonym of “Galérie Jean Désert”, for which he designed many pieces of furniture. Until then, Gray had been inspired by the ornate style typical of Parisian decorators, popularized as Art Deco. He used luxurious materials such as exotic woods, ivory and skins, but by the mid-1920s, his pieces became simpler aesthetically and incorporated steel, aluminum and other industrial materials, reflecting his growing interest in the work of Le Corbusier and his modernist colleagues. Of all the pieces of furniture Eileen Gray created, even those produced in editions, no two were ever exactly alike. Gray adapted the piece to each client, offering an exclusive product.
The furniture of steel pipe by Gray, revolutionary at the time of their creation, are considered classics today. His adjustable table E1027 It is one of the most famous and copied designs in the world. This small table, with an adjustable size, is designed for having breakfast in bed or eating on the sofa in the living room, and it is said that he designed it precisely for it. It was added to the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1978.
Villa E-1027, Cap Martin's house
At the end of the 1920s, Gray designs and builds this beautiful house, which would be a landmark of the modern architecture, lately recognized. Also known as the Cap Martin's house, It was conceived by Gray in a remote place on the Côte d'Azur, on the west side of Cap Martin, far from the noisy Saint-Tropez, where bohemians and the homosexual community of the time took refuge. Precisely, what he wanted was a refuge, difficult to access, to spend the summer with his lover at the time, the critic, journalist and architect. Jean Badovici, magazine director Architecture Living. It was known that Gray had had various relationships with women, the last being the singer Damia, whom he left for Badovici, who was 15 years younger than her.
Two images of the interior of house E-1027, in its original state and already restored today. In the background, one of Le Corbusier's murals, which was recovered.
A house tailored to its creator
The name of the house, E-1027, It is a numerical code resulting from combining her name "E" for Eileen, with the position in the alphabet of her initials: 10=J for Jean, 2=B for Badovici and 7=G, for Gray.
Gray carefully studied the wind and the angle of the sun at different times of the day and year, because his idea was for the house to interact with the natural elements that surrounded her. The structure rises above stilt, the slender white columns that Le Corbusier had introduced into his architecture. The spaces flow into each other, and out into the terraces and balconies of the spacious rooms. Its white walls, the horizontality of the floor plan, the roof, the thin bars of the metal railings and its scarce furniture give it an appearance of docked ship, between the rocks and the sea.
Another peculiarity of the house is that all the furniture, free-standing and under construction, it was designed by Gray, a company that took him three years: kitchen furniture, bathroom furniture, lamps, mirrors, sofas, chairs, tables...
Le Corbusier's controversial murals
Through his magazine, Jean Badovici met Le Corbusier, whom he invites to spend time at Cap Martin's house. There he meets and shares a table and beach with Gray, fascinated by that house with a simple and functional structure, that captures the beauty of the landscape. When the relationship between Gray and Badovici falls apart, Gray gives the house to him and builds another one for herself, near Saint-Tropez.
In the Holy Week 1938. Bodovici leaves the house to Le Corbusier, who, without any explanation or permission, paints eight murals, both inside and outside the home. This fact, totally inexplicable, since Le Corbusier had praised the simplicity and beauty of the white walls of the house, enrages Gray, who writes to Le Corbusier to ask for explanations. Far from recognizing his abuse and mistreatment of another's work, Le Corbusier considers it a gift and an upgrade to breathe life into dull walls. When the Second World War, The Germans occupy the Cap Martin house, vandalize it and shoot at Le Corbusier's murals.
The Cap Moderne complex
The Le Corbusier mural incident contributed to the belief, for decades, that the house E-1027 It was his work. He himself did nothing to correct the error. On the contrary. The murals appear in his complete works and he only mentions that they are in a Cap Martin's house. And elsewhere, he mentions that the house belongs to Jean Badovici and “Helen” Gray, deliberately misspelling Eileen's name.
The researcher Beatriz Colomina has delved into this fascination-obsession of Le Corbusier with the area, the house and the murals. In fact, in 1957, he built, on the edge of Gray's land, the famous Cabanon, a 10 m2 cabin, where he spent long periods of time. Here, precisely, on the Cap Martin beach in front of Eileen's house, Le Corbusier drowns after suffering cardiac arrest.
After countless legal events, inheritances, auctions, transfers, gambling debts and even a murder in the house itself, in the 90s, the building is in a sorry state abandoned and occupied by occasional vacationers. Finally, the French government recovers it in its entirety as part of it as a Historical Monument along with the Cabanon and the Etoile de Mer by Le Corbusier, in the Cap Moderne complex, which today can be visited by the public. Apparently, there was a lot of debate about recovering Le Corbusier's murals, since they were not part of the original design. Finally, it was decided to recover alone three of them.
What happened to Eileen Gray?
At the end of the Second World War, Gray returns to his home in Saint-Tropez and finds that the Germans had also occupied it and destroyed his drawings and designs. Hence the documentation of the works of Eileen Gray is incomplete. He then decides to return to his apartment on Rue Bonaparte in Paris, where he secluded himself until his death. He works little, only for the orders that his friends give him, and lives organizing and collecting his more than 400 designs. It was in 1972, on the occasion of the auction of Doucet's furniture, that he returned to the spotlight, with the media news that Yves Saint Laurent has acquired the Dragons chair, which is being auctioned for a million-dollar figure never seen before.
In the 70s, Eileen Gray began working with Zeev Aram to mass produce its furniture, rugs and lamps. In 1973, he granted his company worldwide rights to manufacture and distribute his designs. The Vereinigte Werkstätten, from which ClassiCon emerged in 1990, was already producing and distributing Eileen Gray designs under license.
In 1976, at the age of 98, she died in her home, surrounded by her furniture and her halo of modern, avant-garde and nonconformist spirit. She was one of the greatest exponents of XNUMXth century modernism, almost without intending to, by pure intuition, vision and creativity.
Images: ClassiCon, archive Victoria & Albert Museum and Manuel Bougot for Cap Moderne
