Eileen Gray

Eileen Gray was born in a small town near Enniscorthy, Ireland. Her parents were wealthy and her father James Maclaren Gray was an amateur painter. Thus, Eileen was exposed to the arts and often traveled with her father on painting tours. It was on these trips around Europe that she developed her unique artistic style. She attended the Slade School of Fine Art and the Académie Julian and the Académie Colarossi. She moved around a lot and became restless in her study of painting. Shortly thereafter, persuaded by Le Corbusier and Jean Badovici among others, she turned her interests to architecture. After enjoying only moderate success, she moved to Paris where she decorated apartments on rue de Lota with furniture and fixtures that she designed. Art critics praised her modern work. This is when she opened her own gallery and sold her designs.

Shortly before her death, Gray’s work was shown in an exhibition in London and her work was remembered fondly by the public. At the age of ninety-eight, Kathleen Eileen Moray Gray died in her apartment on rue Bonaparte in Paris. Throughout her career, she had been independent and did not often work alongside others. She was quite unusual in her life as there were very few female designers around. It was not until after her death that her work was truly appreciated.

Eileen Gray’s innovative Bibendum Chair was one of the 20th century’s most recognizable furniture designs. The chair is very much for lounging in and socializing. Its back/arm rest consists of two semi-circular, padded tubes encased in soft leather. The name that Gray chose for the chair, Bibendum, originates from the character created by Michelin to sell tires. The art critics loved the chair and reviews in papers and magazines exclaimed that it was a “triumph of modern living”.