Eileen Gray - Wholesale Designer Furniture

• Eileen Gray Table. E1027.

Eileen Gray was born on 20 August 1878, into an aristocratic family near Enniscorthy, a small market town in south-eastern Ireland. Gray
was the youngest of five children. Her parents, Eveleen Pounden Gray and James Maclaren Gray were of Scottish/Irish descent. Gray’s father,
James, was a painter who encouraged his daughter's artistic interests. He took his daughter on painting tours of Italy and Switzerland which
and encouraged her independent spirit. Gray spent most of her childhood living in family homes, either in Ireland or South
Kensington in London.

In 1898 at the age of twenty, Gray attended classes at the Slade School of Fine Art, where she studied painting. Whilst enrolling, she
made acquaintances with Jessie Gavin and Kathleen Bruce.

In 1900 (the year of her father’s death), Eileen Gray and her mother went to Paris to visit the Exposition Universelle; this was Eileen’s
first visit to Paris. The Exposition Universelle was a world’s fair that celebrated the achievements of the past century in hopes of encouraging new work in the next. The main style there was Art
Nouveau. Gray was a fan of the work that Charles Rennie Mackintosh had exhibited there.

Soon after, Gray moved to Paris along with her friends from the Slade School, Gavin and Bruce. Eileen Gray continued her studies at the
Académie Julian and the Académie Colarossi. For some four of five years after the move, Gray moved back and forth from Paris to Ireland
to London, and then in 1905, she settled back in London as her mother took ill. Eileen Gray made use of her time in London and rejoined the
Slade, but found that her drawing and painting courses were becoming less satisfying.

Gray came across a lacquer repair shop in Soho where she asked the shop owner whether he could show her the fundamentals of lacquer work
as it had taken her fancy. The owner had many contacts from the lacquer industry and when Gray moved back to Paris in 1906, to an
apartment where she remained for much of her working life, she met one of them; Seizo Sugawara (or Sugawara-san). He originated from an area
of Japan that was known for its decorative lacquer work and emigrated to Paris to repair the lacquer work exhibited in the Exposition
Universelle. She found after working with Sugawara for four years that she had developed the lacquer disease on her hands, however she
persisted in her work and it was not until she was thirty-five that she exhibited her work. When she did, however, it was a success.

In 1914, when World War I broke out, Gray moved back to London, taking Sugawara with her. At the end of the war, they returned to Paris and
Gray was given the job of decorating an apartment in the rue de Lota. She designed most of its furniture, carpets and lamps, and installed
lacquered panels on the walls. The result was favorably reviewed by several art critics who saw it as innovative.
Given a boost from the success of the apartment on rue de Lota, Gray opened up a small shop in Paris, Jean Desert, to exhibit and sell her
work and that of her artist friends.


E1027 table by Eileen GrayIn the late 1920s and early 1930s, Gray was involved with the Union des Artistes Modernes which had well-known
members. She designed and furnished herself a new home, Tempe à Pailla outside Menton, and continued to work there with keen interest. In
1937, she agreed to exhibit her design for a holiday center in Le Corbusier's Esprit Nouveau pavilion at the Paris Exposition.

During World War II Gray, along with all other foreigners, was forced to evacuate the coast of France and move inland. After the war
discovered that her flat in Saint-Tropez had been blown up and that E.1027 had been looted.

Gray returned to Paris and led a reclusive life. She continued to work on new projects, but was almost forgotten by the design industry. When
she was around seventy, she started to lose her sight and hearing, yet when she was eighty, she transformed a dilapidated agricultural shed
outside Saint-Tropez into a summer home; she soon moved there and continued to work.

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 tyres.


Bibendum chair by Eileen GrayThe chair was designed for a millioner; Madame Mathieu Lévy who was a highly successful boutique owner which
sold stylish hats. Lévy had commissioned Gray to re-design her apartment on rue de Lota in Paris. It was hoped to be new and original, with innovative designs. The process took four, painstaking
years; from 1917 to 1921. During this time, Eileen Gray created the Bibendum chair along with the interior walls, furnishings, rugs and
lamps. With Gray’s disapproval of the moulded walls that had previously been installed, she put up lacquered panels instead. She
wanted to create the apartment so that it fulfilled aspirations, suited Lévy’s lifestyle and would go along with any particular mood.
The Bibendum Chair was relatively large; its depth approximately 840mm and its height 740 mm tall.

The visible part of the frame of the Bibendum i.e. the legs, were made of a polished, chromium plated, stainless steel tube. The framing of
the actual seat was made of beechwood and there was rubber webbing that was inter-woven across the base of the seat to provide added
comfort. The seat, back and arm rests encased in soft, pale leather. Gray made a point of using plain coverings for this particular chair
as well as another, the Serpent Chair which was simple, plain red. She also designed the Pirogue Boat Bed which was also completely plain.
This was so that the apartment would not look too cluttered or messy and so that the eye would be drawn, first of all, to the tribal art on
display. The furniture in the apartment on rue de Lota, in particular the Bibendum Chair, was all extremely comfortable.

Today, a full grain leather coated Bibendum Chair would sell for an approximate price of £2300. The chair was designed for the room so
that it looked inviting and made you want to sit down in it. As the apartment was being designed for a trendy, modern, young woman, Eileen
Gray’s wish was to make it quite alternative and daring. The Bibendum Chair in itself was hardly like anything ever seen before and its
originality was quite amazing at the time.

The Bibendum Chair was designed as part of the modernist movement which was completely different from her earlier, more traditional
work. She decided to make the change in style to simply make “progress”. The art critics loved the chair and reviews in papers and
magazines exclaimed that it was a “triumph of modern living”. Thanks to her great achievement with the Bibendum chair and the other
furnishings designed at the apartment on rue de Lota, Gray was given a huge moral boost, so she made the decision of opening up her own
gallery in 1922 . Madame Mathieu Lévy’s commission provided a great financial success for Gray, and thanks to this, she did no longer need
to rely on her family's financial support.