Eileen Gray

Eileen Gray (born Kathleen Eileen Moray Smith; 9 August 187831 October 1976) was an Irish architect and furniture designer who became a pioneer of the Modern Movement in architecture.

Over her career, she was associated with many notable European artists of her era, including Kathleen Scott, Adrienne Gorska, Le Corbusier, and Jean Badovici, with whom she was romantically involved.

Her most famous work is the house known as E-1027 in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France.

Gray was born Kathleen Eileen Moray Smith on 9 August 1878 at Brownswood, an estate near Enniscorthy in County Wexford in the south-east of Ireland.

She was the youngest of five children.

Her father, James McLaren Smith, was a Scottish landscape painter.

He encouraged Gray's interest in painting and drawing.

Although he was a minor figure, James corresponded with major artists of the day.

Her parents’ marriage ended in divorce when she was eleven and her father left Ireland to live and paint in Europe.

She became the 19th Baroness Gray in 1895 after the death of her uncle.

Although the couple was already separated by this point, Gray's father changed his name to Smith-Gray by royal licence and the four children were from then on known as Gray.

Gray split her upbringing between Brownswood House in Ireland and the family's home at No. 14 The Boltons, in Kensington, London.

She was presented as a debutante at Buckingham Palace in 1898.

Both Gray's brother and father died in 1900.

Gray briefly attended a school in Dresden, Germany but was mainly educated by governesses.

Gray's serious art education began in 1900 at the Slade School in London.

Gray was a registered fine arts student at the Slade from 1900 to 1902.

Although fine arts education was typical for a young woman of Gray's class, Slade was an unusual choice.

Known as a bohemian school, the classes at Slade were generally co-educational which was usual for the time.

Gray was one of 168 female students in a class of 228.

Gray had many influential teachers at the Slade, including Philip Wilson Steer, a Romantic landscape painter, Henry Tonks, a surgeon and figure painter, and Frederick Brown.

While at the Slade, Gray met furniture restorer Dean Charles in 1901.

Charles was Gray's first introduction to lacquering and she took lessons in the technique from his company in Soho.

In 1902, Gray moved to Paris with Kathleen Bruce and Jessie Gavin.

They enrolled at the Académie Colarossi, an art school popular with foreign students, but soon switched to the Académie Julian.

In 1905, Gray returned to London to be with her ill mother.

For the next two years, she studied lacquering with Dean Charles before returning to Paris.

When she returned to Paris, Gray purchased a flat in the rue Bonaparte, and began training with Seizo Sugawara.

Sugawara was from Jahoji, a village in northern Japan famous for its lacquer work, and he was in Paris to restore the lacquer pieces Japan had sent to the Exposition Universale.

Gray was so dedicated to learning the trade that she suffered the so-called lacquer disease, a painful rash on her hands, but that did not stop her from working.

In 1910, Gray opened a lacquer workshop with Sugawara.

By 1912, she was producing pieces to commission for some of Paris's richest clients.

Gray served as an ambulance driver at the beginning of World War I before returning to England to wait out the war with Sugawara.

After the war Gray and Sugawara returned to Paris.

In 1917, Gray was hired to redesign the Rue de Lota apartment of society hostess Juliette Lévy.

Also known as Madame Mathieu Levy, Juliette owned the fashion house and millinery shop.

The Rue de Lota apartment has been called "the epitome of Art Deco."

A 1920 issue of Harper's Bazaar describes the Rue de Lota apartment as ‘thoroughly modern although there is much feeling for the antique’.

The furniture included some of Gray's best known designs – the Bibendum Chair and the Pirogue Day Bed.

Gray's mother, Eveleen Pounden, was a granddaughter of Francis Stuart, 10th Earl of Moray.