Eileen Grey: rug designs

Hemmings, Jessica (2006) Eileen Grey: rug designs. Modern Carpets and Textiles, 1 (1 (Winter)).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Irish by birth, Eileen Gray spent the better part of her life in France, dying in 1976 at the age of 98 largely unrecognized for contribution she made to modern architecture. But in recent years new enthusiasm and interest has grown around Gray’s work, which included only two realized architectural projects but many studies, as well as furniture and rug designs. Nonetheless, examples of Gray’s work remain scarce. Libby Sellers, curator of the current Eileen Gray exhibition at the Design Museum in London admits that the challenge in elevating Gray to what many now consider to be her rightful position in design history lies in “a general lack of information on most of her designs due to the various unfortunate consequences of her career.” Sellers suggests that many fates conspired to keep Gray’s talent shrouded in obscurity, from her nationality – or more precisely the lack of a clear one – and her gender to the second world war and, ironically, the transitional space between art historical movements that her work occupies: “As a woman working in male dominated fields, the importance of her influential discoveries and forward thinking solutions, were often negated by her male contemporaries. As an Anglo-Irish émigré who lived the majority of her 98 years in Paris – the French, Irish, and British all stake claims on her legacy and her archives have been split between all three countries. As a designer who bridged the distinct worlds of Art Deco and Modernism, design historians falter as to how best to classify her. And as a designer working between the two world wars, many of her original designs were destroyed, stolen or looted from her houses.”

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