Eileen Gray

Her parents’ marriage broke up when she was eleven and her father left Ireland to live and paint in Europe.

Marco Orsini's documentary, Gray Matters, was released in 2014. A biopic on Gray's life by Mary McGuckian, The Price of Desire opened in 2016. A 2020 short film by Michel Pitiot, In Conversation with Eileen Gray, was based on an unreleased 1973 interview with Andrew Hodgkinson.

In February 2009, Gray's "Dragons" armchair made by her between 1917 and 1919 (acquired by her early patron Suzanne Talbot and later part of the Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé collection) was sold at auction in Paris for €21.9 million (US$28.3 million), setting an auction record for 20th-century decorative art.

Eileen Gray died on Halloween 1976. She is buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, but because her family omitted to pay the licence fee her grave is not identifiable.

In 1973 Gray signed a contract to reproduce the Bibendum chair and many of her pieces for the first time. They remain in production.

At a Paris auction of 1972, Yves Saint Laurent bought Le Destin and revived interest in Gray's career.

Renewed interest in Gray's work began in 1967 when historian Joseph Rykwert published an essay about her in the Italian design magazine Domus. After the publishing of the article many "students began to ring at her door" as eager to learn from the now famous designer.

Gray's intermittent relationship with Marie-Louise Damien ended in 1938, after which they never saw each other again, although both lived into their nineties in the same city.

Gray and Badovici broke up and in 1931 Gray started work on a new house, Tempe à Pailla, above the nearby town of Menton. The name Tempe à Pailla is translated into English as "Time and Hay" and references a Provençal proverb that say both are needed for figs to ripen. It was a small two bedroom house with a large terrace. Much of the furniture was transformable, including expandable wardrobes and a dining banquette that both folded for storage and could be turned into an occasional table. With Tempe à Pailla, Gray moved away from Le Corbusier's free plan ideal and created more separate spaces while maximizing the house's panoramic views. Gray's design also maximized airflow and natural light with features such as shuttered windows and skylights. Gray's multi-level kitchen was influenced by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky's Frankfurt Kitchen.

Jean Désert closed due to financial losses in 1930.

In 1926, she started work on a new holiday home near Monaco to share with Badovici. Because a foreigner in France couldn't wholly own property, Gray bought the land and put it in Badovici's name, making him her client on paper. Construction of the house took three years and Gray remained on site while Badovici visited occasionally.

Gray also had for some time an intermittent relationship with Jean Badovici, the Romanian architect and writer. He had written about her design work in 1924 and encouraged her interest in architecture. Their romantic involvement ended in 1932.

The critical and financial success of the project prompted Gray to open her own shop in 1922. Jean Désert was located on the fashionable Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris. The shop was named after an imaginary male owner “Jean” and Gray's love of the North African desert. Gray designed the facade of the shop herself. Jean Désert sold the abstract geometric rugs designed by Gray and woven in Evelyn Wyld's workshops. Clients included James Joyce, Ezra Pound and Elsa Schiaparelli.

By 1921, Gray was romantically involved with Romanian architect and writer Jean Badovici who was 15 years her junior. He encouraged her growing interest in architecture. From 1922/1923 to 1926 Gray created an informal architectural apprenticeship for herself as she never received any formal training as an architect. She studied theoretical and technical books, took drafting lessons, and arranged to have Adrienne Gorska take her along to building sites. She also traveled with Badovici to study key buildings and learned by reworking architectural designs.

Eileen Gray was born on April 25, 1920 in Bermondsey, London, England as Edna Eileen Mary Greenway. She was married to Walter (Wally) Herbert Gray.

In 1919 the 10th Salon des Artistes Decorateurs featured inexpensive postwar furniture. The goal of the Salon des Artistes was to reconstruct Paris and erase the scars of the war left on the country. In its efforts, multiple artists sought to reestablish that Paris was still the "Intellectual capital of the world". During this post-war reconstruction the push for modernization was ever-more evident. This exhibition was made in an attempt to endorse new arts of the French renaissance, stepping up to German designers. Gray participated in the exhibition, however her works were not recorded. In 1920 Harper's Bazaar, an article dedicated to keeping record of Gray's lacquer work stated "Laquer Walls and Furniture Displace Old Gods in Paris and London."

After the war Gray and Sugawara returned to Paris. In 1917, Gray was hired to redesigning the Rue de Lota apartment of society hostess Juliette Lévy. Also known as Madame Mathieu Levy, Juliette owned the fashion house and millinery shop.

In 1910, Gray opened a lacquer workshop with Sugawara. By 1912, she was producing pieces to commission for some of Paris's richest clients.

In 1905, Gray returned to London to be with her ill mother. For the next two years, she studied lacquering with Dean Charles before returning to Paris. When she returned to Paris, Gray purchased a flat in the rue Bonaparte, and began training with Seizo Sugawara. Sugawara was from Jahoji, a village in northern Japan famous for its lacquer work, and he was in Paris to restore the lacquer pieces Japan had sent to the Exposition Universale. Gray was so dedicated to learning the trade that she suffered the so-called lacquer disease, a painful rash on her hands, but that did not stop her from working.

In 1902, Gray moved to Paris with Kathleen Bruce and Jessie Gavin. They enrolled at the Académie Colarossi, an art school popular with foreign students, but soon switched to the Académie Julian.

While at Slade, Gray met furniture restorer Dean Charles in 1901. Charles was Gray's first introduction to lacquering and she took lessons in the technique from his company in Soho.

Gray's serious art education began in 1900 at the Slade School in London. Gray was a registered fine arts student at Slade from 1900 to 1902. Although fine arts education was typical for a young woman of Gray's class, Slade was an unusual choice. Known as a bohemian school, the classes at Slade were generally co-educational which was usual for the time. Gray was one of 168 female students in a class of 228.

Gray split her upbringing between Brownswood House in Ireland and the family's home at No. 14 The Boltons, in Kensington, London. She was presented as a debutante at Buckingham Palace in 1898.

Gray's mother, Eveleen Pounden, was a granddaughter of Francis Stuart, 10th Earl of Moray. She became the 19th Baroness Gray in 1895 after the death of her uncle. Although the couple was already separated by this point, Gray's father changed his name to Smith-Gray by royal licence and the four children were from then on known as Gray.

Eileen Gray (born Kathleen Eileen Moray Smith; 9 August 1878 – 31 October 1976) was an Anglo-Irish architect and furniture designer and a pioneer of the Modern Movement in architecture. Over her career, she was associated with many notable European artists of her era, including Kathleen Scott, Adrienne Gorska, Le Corbusier, and Jean Badovici, with whom she was romantically involved. Her most famous work is the house known as E-1027 in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France.