During the 20th Century: The Brilliant Eileen Gray Founded The Modern Design
Born Kathleen Eileen Moray Gray on August 1878 in Brownswood nearby Enniscorthy, west Ireland, Eileen Gray is a designer, architect and polish artist who pioneered the Modern design movement in the 20th century. Like her colleagues Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, Gray’s designs for architecture and furnishings were among the earliest models of modern design and are recognized to be among the best of our period.
The youngest daughter of the well-to-do Scottish-Irish Gray family, Eileen Gray focused the well-regarded Slade School of Fine Art in Bloomsbury, London in 1898., but transferred then after to the Ecole Colarossi and the Academie Julian in Paris when her father died in 1900. Gray in time returned to London in 1905, where during a visit to the Soho district she became rapt with lacquer-work. She eventually studied lacquerwork under the tutelage of Seizo Sugawara, a Japanese lacquer artist working for the Exposition Universelle in Paris. After which in 1913, Gray finished her very first exposition presenting several of her attractive panels all through the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs.
Eileen Gray started her career as a lacquer artist before branching out into furniture design and architecture. The structures she made were identified for their long and narrow interior spaces and numerous stages for storage and viewing decks, a nod to her affection to ship architecture. In addition, Gray would also often design furnishings with the express purpose of placing them inside the inner part of the buildings she created and decorated. Some distinguished furniture designworks she made include the Bibendum Chair, the Biboquet Table, and the E-1027 Table Lamp.
Regardless of of her accomplishments, Gray’s profession went downhill after World War II when her houses and most of her belongings in France were destroyed by the retreating German Army. Eileen Gray resided in France for the remainder of her life, eventually regaining most of her status in the public eye after being featured highly in design magazines. Shortly after a victorious auction of her work was established, Gray died in October 1976 in Rue Bonaparte, France.
Tags: ball chair, egg chair, Eileen Gray, lc1, lc2 le corbusier, le corbusier, le corbusier sofa, Mies van der Rohe
Window Hardware | Jane | 07 September 2010 |
