Eileen Gray: Pioneer Female Designer of Modernism

Gray struck up a friendship with architectural critic Jean Badovici. In 1922, they collaborated to open Galerie Jean Désert—a space for exhibition and a shop rolled into one. While there were many female decorative designers in Britain and the United States, Eileen remained an outsider in Paris’ male-dominated design circle.

In 1923, she created a boudoir-bedroom for the Monte Carlo Exhibition and showcased her works at the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs in Paris. In 1926, the Maharaja of Indore purchased two deck chairs from Gray. These chairs were initially designed for her new architectural project—the E-1027 villa in Roquebrune-sur-Argens, now designated a national architectural heritage site by the French government.

n 1932, Gray designed a second home for herself in Tempe-Palau. But the outbreak of World War II forced her to move inland for safety. This period of isolation turned her into a recluse for the rest of her life. Upon her return to Tempe-Palau, she found her home ransacked; her apartment in Saint-Tropez, where most of her works were stored, suffered the same fate. Crushed by the loss, her creative output was severely limited during the war. In 1954, she began building her third residence in Loupelo near Saint-Tropez, yet she remained entirely out of the public eye. Later, she lived in an apartment on Rue Bonaparte in Paris and continued her design work. It was not until the 1970s that Gray gradually gained recognition through a series of retrospective exhibitions of her works. She passed away in 1976, and France’s national radio station issued a special obituary—by then, the world had begun to realize the loss of a genius.

Today, both Ireland and France have taken steps to honor Eileen Gray’s genius. In Ireland, the National Museum of Ireland at Collins Barracks held an exhibition that tells Gray’s life story through her works, all of which were acquired from her Paris apartment after her death. Most recently, the Centre Pompidou in Paris staged a major retrospective in 2013, showcasing previously unseen works by Gray and highlighting her artistic innovation. This exhibition paid a powerful tribute to the "magnificent and evocative" Irish designer—accolades that had eluded her throughout her lifetime.