Eileen Gray - Non Conformist Artist ClassiCon presents original Eileen Gray gouaches & rug designs

Free versatile modern courageous: Eileen Gray (1878–1976) was a multi-faceted artist and a non-conformist. As a designer as well as a woman, she chose not to adhere to rigid boundaries, neither in her profession nor in love. Irish-born and an art student from a well-off family, she moved to Paris at the beginning of the 20th century, where she became a cheeky garçonne with a short bob cut, and a successful businesswoman.

Each design was a special challenge because, unlike a painting, a carpet has no clearly defined top or bottom, right and left. It has to look good from all sides. In addition, the pattern had to have the same effect when enlarged by a factor of ten to twenty and after having been woven or knotted. As someone who had studied painting, Eileen Gray developed an unerring eye and a special instinct for this.

Classical modernism had radically disposed of all musty, plush interiors. As a designer who loved to experiment, Eileen Gray brought carpets back into the home; featuring modern colours and graphic patterns, they formed an almost symbiotic relationship with her furniture. In an article from 1929, Eileen Gray postulated that a “space for retreat and tranquillity” and “a harmonious atmosphere” were prerequisite to “create a home for people”, and for her, this included these home textiles.

Beige and sand, these natural tones were particularly popular among buyers. As early as 1904, during her travels and field studies in North Africa, Eileen Gray had discovered these warm colours as well as her love of carpet design. From time immemorial, woven works of art have been used in interiors to adorn walls, to define different living areas, to improve acoustics and to lend warmth to floors.

Eileen Gray also envisaged thick carpets in the apartment on Rue de Lota, the first home which, in 1919, she was commissioned to design entirely for the fashion designer Juliette Mathieu-Lévy. Eileen Gray boldly chose black and white, silver and grey for the interior. “Dreams translated into rooms”, is how one critic praised her design.

Stagnation was alien to Eileen Gray, and so she moved to the Côte d‘Azur with her new muse, the architect Jean Badovici. He had encouraged his companion, who was still inexperienced in architecture, to design and build a house there. In 1929, she completed her Villa E1027 on the Mediterranean coast near Monaco, today the iconic Gray gesamtkunstwerk par excellence.

Blue, yellow and white – during this auspicious time, the Mediterranean summer colours shone particularly brightly for Eileen Gray, whose work was published by Badovici. In 1929, he dedicated an entire issue of his magazine L‘Architecture vivante to the now proud architect Eileen Gray and her design manifesto. At that time, new carpet motifs such as Blue Marine or Centimetre told of the sea and of ship voyages, soon also in a second house in nearby Castellar, where she lived alone from 1940 after separating from Badovici.

After the Second World War, during which Eileen Gray, too, fell into oblivion as an architect and designer, she continued to work in a disciplined manner until old age, even without commissions. Drawing, collage and painting, which she pursued throughout her life, were comforting activities for her. Eileen Gray remained a ‘private painter’, she never exhibited her paintings publicly.

Shortly before her death, she destroyed most of her private documents, including countless photographs and letters. But she carefully preserved the sketches, gouaches and collages that she still had. Many are ‘untitled’, others bear the names of mythical characters or recall the stations of her life, such as Bonaparte, for example, the street where her Paris flat was located. As she had always been very critical and strict with herself, in the end she must have found these works, which are as colourful as her life, worthy of outliving her.

The artist left the world a collection of abstract paintings, carefully glued to cardboard, featuring a note on the rear side, some also signed. When the estate of Jacques Doucet, who was one of her first and perhaps the most important buyer from her Paris beginnings, came up for auction in 1972, the world, and probably Eileen Gray herself, realised the real significance of her work for the first time: the lacquered screen Le Destin achieved a record price of 18,000 British pounds.

In the same year, the British Royal Society of Arts awarded her the title Royal Designer of Industry (RDI). Eileen Gray did not appear at the ceremony; self-promotion had never been her thing. A few years after this late claim to fame, in 1976, Eileen Gray died at the age of 98 in her adopted home of Paris.