Eileen Gray (1878-1976) - A Forgotten Irish Designer and Architect in Paris

Eileen Gray 1926 by Berenice Abbott

Eileen Gray in her rue de Bonaparte apartment with a Block Screen, 1970

Eileen Gray is the great forgotten C20 designer and architect. Perhaps partly due to being a woman, an expatriate Irish in a non-Anglo environment and an untrained but gifted amateur dilettante. Best known (if at all) for her work in the Art Deco style, she continually embraced new styles and materials throughout her long life, never clinging to past success.

Eileen Gray studied painting at the Slade School in London, and, after her father's death in 1900, moved to Paris, continuing her study at the Académie Julian and the École Colarossi. But it was when back in London in 1905 for her mother's illness that Eileen found Mr Charles' lacquer repair shop in Dean Street in Soho, and learned the art of lacquering screens. Study furthered back in Paris with Sugiwara from 1906-10.

Sugiwara in his rue Guénégaud atelier

Eileen showed some decorative panels at the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs in 1913, and established her own design business in 1922 at 217 rue du Faubourg-St-Honore, the Galerie Jean Désert. With its mythical director, Jean Desert!

Invitation to Galerie Jean Désert, 1920s

Her interior design involved among other things furniture and interior fittings ...

Armchair Bibendum , 1925

Daybed was originally designed in 1925 for Madame Talbot's�

Menton Table, 1932

Screen 1922 Lacquered wood and metal rods

Coffee Table 1927

Lamp

Satellite Mirror

... and rugs.

Castellar Rug 1925-35

Bonaparte Rug 1925-35

Kilkenny Rug 1925-35

Roquebrune Rug 1925-35

Wendingen Rug 1926-29

Rug for Eileen Gray's House E-1027, 1926-29

Eileen Gray also planned integrated designs, such as the refurbishing of the rue de Lota apartment of Madame Levy in 1920.

Rue de Lota apartment designed by Eileen Gray with her Pirogue sofa


The rue de Lota apartment designed by Eileen Gray with her Bibendum Chair, Serpent Chair and Block Screen visible in the doorway

She then naturally ventured into a parallel career in architecture under the encouragement of her friend and lover, architecture critic Jean Badovici, with later support of the French architect Le Corbusier.

With Badovici, she began her first home, E-1027 (1927-29), at Cap Martin (Alpes-Maritimes), France ...

E-1027, Roquebrune, near Menton


Living room at E-1027 2

The guest bedroom at E-1027 with the E-1027 Table designed by Eileen Gray

... which she followed with Tempe A Pailla (1932-34) 187 rue Castelland, Castellar, (Alpes-Maritimes), France.

Tempe A Pailla, 1932-34

The terrace at Tempe A Pailla with a folding S chair, 1932-34

Eileen Gray then branched out into other (mostly unrealized) projects.





What I particularly love about this modernist architecture of the 20's and 30's is the open planning - such that space flows through the house, rather than being static and boxed up in square rooms, where doors shut to further close the movement off.

It was only in 1968 that Eileen Gray's work began to be appreciated - through an article by Joseph Rykwert in 'Domus' magazine. An appreciation boosted in 1972 by the unexpectedly high values reached by her furniture and fittings in the auction of the contents of Jean Doucet's apartment.

This led to the reproduction of many of her designs by the London company, Aram. A MoMA exhibition in New York in 1980. And a film 'Eileen Gray - Invitation to a Voyage' (2006), directed by Jorge Bundschuh. Her place in design and architecture is now secure.

From this post you would imagine Eileen Gray was a self-possessed and forceful personality. In fact, she was quiet, shy and nervous ...


... writing in old age:

'I have instinctive fears, fears of ghosts, of people. I have tried in vain to conquer them'

I love when people so magnificently overcome their (perhaps self-perceived) limitations!

'Hi' and 'Hey' - Intensifying Intimacy

'Tu', 'Vous' and the Bread Lady

I miscalculatedly 'Hey-ed' someone in the blogosphere the other day - and was savagely 'Dear-ed' back!

And I began to think about the issue.

Along with everyone else in the Anglophile universe, I invariably used to start letters and emails with the conventional 'Dear' greeting. For everyone - business and personal ... whatever. Life was easy!

Because of SMS-ing, chatroom chatting and blog posting, I realize that I've quite unconsciously added 'Hello', 'Hi' and 'Hey' to my repertoire of written greetings. With 'Hello' the most formal and 'Hi' the least? BTW, does 'Hello' sound totally deranged everywhere?!

Anyway, it felt great now being able to manage levels of intimacy. As I do in French with 'tu' ('you' for intimate friends) and 'vous' ('you' for everyone else). (Big 'tu' kiss to Ulysse!)

Then I recalled I'd not been traumatized by my 'intimacy error' in English.

As I might have been in French, which is viewed by Francophones as the not-to-be corrupted 'national treasure'.

I remember a French blog where a guy had posted he'd been talking to his 'bread lady' and things had moved from transactional to personal. And the woman asked "Tu t'ennuies pas trop?" ("Aren't you bored?") referring to his move to the countryside. The guy was flabbergast, replying "Est-ce qu'on se dit tu ou est-ce qu'on se dit vous ?" ("Do we say 'tu' or 'vous' to each other?"). Provoking the response "Je m'en fous" ("I don't give a fuck") - followed by them both laughing uproariously! Awful interpersonal tension being released.

In fact the same distinction used to be made in English - with 'thou' as the singular form ...

'Thou' and 'You' in Shakespeare

... and 'you' the plural form, for the second person nominative.

With 'thou' becoming an intimate form of 'you', up to the end of the Edwardian era.

It remains now in the language only in set expressions such as 'Holier than thou'. With curiously a new plural form appearing here recently in certain sociolects - "Are yous coming tonight?".

But back to 'hey' and 'hi'.

I just love being able to intensify intimacy with 'hey' - and it's become really natural to me now, having seemed a bit awkward and calculated at first.

Thank god for language change and evolution, hey!

Did You Know ... ?

Did you know that ...

Annually you will shake hands with 26 men who have recently masturbated but failed to wash their hands.

Annually you will shake hands with 2 women who have recently masturbated but failed to wash their hands.

Over a year, you will swallow 14 insects while you sleep.

Daily you will breath in 1 litre of other peoples' anal gas.

An average person's annual intake of fast food will contain 12 pubic hairs.

Great urban myths of course - but which I chose to believe!!! LOL

Rembrandt (1606-1669) - 'The Three Trees' (1650)

It was only the other day that I've ever really paid any attention to a little Rembrandt etching we bought at a fine art auction a few years back. I guess it just got lost among some of the showier things about the place.


It's a recent pressing from the original plates held at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Ones made in the artist's lifetime are insanely valuable cos they may have been made by Rembrandt himself, though more likely by his assistants.

I could go on about the iconography of the work - the symbolism of the three trees representing the three crucified at Calvary, and so on.

But what struck me the other day was the more general sense of the place of man and his works in nature, just tucked away as part of the landscape rather than dominating things.

There is a tiny figure on the hill to the right, observing the trees. And a fisherman and his wife (?) at the water side on the other side of the etching. A man tilling his field in the middle foreground. A windmill towards the horizon. And a town far off at an even greater distant. Man and his creations really need to be winkled out.

What is absolutely dominant is the vigorous and varied drama of nature. The clouds and the theatrical sunlight in a sky which is itself the real subject of the image, along with the trees.

'The Three Trees' is now one of my fav-or-ite things (ack. Julie Andrews). Probably should reposition it - things can easily become 'invisible' if they're always in the same place!

Postscript: Some of the seemingly 'unnatural' cloud formations may be due to the fact that Rembrandt worked on the plate in 1639 - a 'Death of the Virgin' - but abandoned it only to undertake and complete this current work in 1650.

Pilgrimages and Trekking to the Base Camp of Annapurna 1, Nepal

I often thought of Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales' when I was trekking to the Base Camp of Annapurna 1 - at an altitude of over 4000 metres or half way to the summit at 8091 metres. To put this in perspective, Everest is 8,848 metres.

Annapurna 1, Nepal - 8091 Metres

It was the last trek of the year - too cold after November.

And far too fucking cold at night even then. Even under two enormously thick dunas and wearing every article of clothing I could muster including thermal underwear (top and bottom), I was teeth-chatteringly frozen all night ... sleep was impossible. Early in the morning, the tiniest sliver of exposed flesh between the cuffs of my two down jackets and my thick leather gloves was like being slashingly cut by a razor blade. And a big one!

Now I realize there is something deep in the human psyche that urges us to undertake such journeys or to make a pilgrimages. Something necessary and deeply symbolic.

I used to read about medieval pilgrimages, like the one to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northern Spain. The church is said to be the burial place of St James.


And of course I knew about the one Chaucer fictionalized in 'The Canterbury Tales'. Of which there are 88 extant contemporary versions - two in prose, the rest in verse.

Portrait of Geoffry Chaucer from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, GG.4.27(1), University Library Cambridge

This famous pilgrimage commemorates the murder of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury and his subsequent elevation to sainthood as St Thomas Becket. With the object of the pilgrims being his shrine at Canterbury Cathedral.

As you probably know, Chaucer's Tale is fascinating as a set of revealing character studies (or tales) of the members of a particular group of travellers. Who meet and dine at Southwark in London before setting out ...

Chaucer's Pilgrims Dining before Setting out for Canterbury from Southwark - Woodcut, 1484

There is a knight, a miller, a squire, a physician, nun ... and so on. With the pilgrimage structure allowing Chaucer to bring together this diverse range of people.

Pilgrims Journeying to Canterbury

The work is significant in that it is the first literary work in vernacular English (as opposed to the French of the court) and in that it provides insights into so many aspects of life in the C14.

So the trek up to the Base Camp of Annapurna 1 was my own particular pilgrimage!

We started out from Pokera, our Southwark ...


... with distant views of Annapurna just after we began ... for encouragement.


The inn we stayed at that night was an elaborate affair ...


... compared with the less and less grandiose resting places as we trekked on.


We made friends on the way ...


... and came across rice terraces ...


... and stretches of bubbling 'white' water ...



... and wide, complex and misty water falls.


Not far from the Base Camp, we entered the 'silent zone' (where the sound of anything living ceased, completely) ...



... and then the 'snow zone'.


At last, we arrived at the Base Camp ...

To be awoken next day just after dawn by an avalanche, which sent everyone diving for their cameras.

Which was followed by the sun rise - hardly an anti-climax! Every camera was out again.


After a few days rest and contemplation and reflection, we unwillingly returned to Pokera, but not before taking one final long lingering glance back.


It was one of those journeys you think about for a long long long time after ... and still do.

Truly a pilgrimage.

Jake was Dying ...

Jake was dying.

His boyfriend sat at the bedside.

Jake looked up and said weakly 'I have something I must confess'.

'There's no need' his boyfriend replied.

'No' he insisted 'I want to die in peace. I slept with your brother, his best friend, your best friend, and your father!'

'I know,' the boyfriend replied, 'now just rest and let the poison work'.