Eileen Gray

I'm glad I chose Eileen Gray as my next research blog. She was a very fascinating woman. She was as a lacquer artist, furniture designer, and architect during the early 20th century in both France and England. Her work was considered to be ahead of it's time and completely original. If you would like a biography you can find a great one here: www.designmuseum.org/design/eileen-gray. I'm not sure how to post links so just copy and paste. If you are looking for pictures of her work this isn't a good resource. When I searched for one of her most famous designs I found that the Bibendum Chair is still being produced today by various different furniture companies all over the world. The chair is made of leather and tubular steel.












The image on the top has the actual chair designed by Gray and the image on the right is one of the reproductions currently being sold.


The reason I like this chair so much is because it looks comfy.

One of her most famous projects was E-1027. This was a house she and Jean Badovici designed near Monaco. Gray also designed all the furniture in the house. The E-1027 glass and tubular steel table is also still considered an iconic design. The table was designed so that you could use it to eat breakfast in bed and just like the Bibendum chair, is still being reproduced today. Unfortunately the blogger is having some technical difficulties so I wasn't able to upload an image of the table but if you would like to see images and learn more about E-1027 go to this website: www.e1027.org/index.html. This is the site for the actual house in France.
The main reason I like Eileen Gray so much is because she was an independent woman living in a time when women weren't so independent. Although she was not considered successful during her time she did design some of the most innovative furniture of the 20th century.

Catherine