Eileen Gray
Postscript
A retrospective exhibition reveals new discoveries about this pioneering figure in modern design and architecture, whose work spanned 70 years.
This New York exhibition explores the architecture and artistic practice of Irish-born Eileen Gray, one of the twentieth century’s most accomplished designer-architects.
Irish designer and architect Eileen Gray (1878–1976) was a pioneering figure in modern design and architecture and was one of the few women to practice professionally in the fields before World War II. A retrospective exhibition at the Bard Graduate Center in New York, organized by Paris-based Centre Pompidou in collaboration with the Bard, presented new discoveries from archival research into Gray’s oeuvre. Unfortunately, less than one month after the exhibition opened, the gallery was forced to shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In response, the Bard developed an excellent microsite that digitally extended the exhibition. A catalogue added scholarly heft, charting the trajectory of Gray’s career and citing case studies (42 decorative arts and design projects and 47 architecture projects).
More than two hundred exhibits included drawings and archival photographs related to Gray’s design and architectural projects, scale models, lacquered decorative objects and furniture, upholstered and steel furniture, and carpets and textiles. Gray’s most celebrated architectural work, the E-1027 villa in Southern France designed in 1929 in collaboration with and for Romanian architect Jean Badovici, was explored through archival materials and eleven pieces of furniture she designed for the house, including the Transat chair and a dressing table with pivoting shelves. Tempe a Pailla, a villa that she designed in 1934 for herself, was another domestic architecture highlight. Unrealized social housing projects included a demountable Camping Tent (1930–1931) exhibited as a scale model.
New discoveries included a previously unattributed preparatory drawing annotated by Gray for a Monte Carlo bedroom/boudoir (1923), which she designed for exhibition at the XIV Salon des Artistes Décorateurs. Among other furniture, the drawing illustrates a three-panel screen previously thought to be lacquered but now identified as leather, as well as a unique textured lacquer table not previously connected with this project. Writing in Art et Décoration, a contemporary critic said of this room, “… it exudes an atmosphere, and one cannot deny its extravagance: it reveals a talent and a sensitivity.” Unity of space and form is central throughout Gray’s oeuvre.
Gray’s seven-decade-long career was launched by her lacquerware, which was first exhibited in 1913.
The auction of an important French private collection of Gray’s lacquerware and furniture in 1972 triggered a resurgence in interest in Gray and her first French retrospective in 1980, which confirmed her place in the pantheon of pioneering modernist designers and architects. This exhibition is another milestone but it is surely not the concluding chapter: there is more to learn about this pivotal figure in the history of modern design. bgc.bard.edu
Eileen Gray was exhibited at the Bard Graduate Center Gallery in New York from 29 February to 12 July 2020. An online companion to the exhibition was made available when the gallery closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.