In 2009, a brown leather armchair stand-
ing just 24 inches tall sold at Christie’s for £19.4
million, setting an auction record for 20th-century
furniture. It had an illustrious provenance, having
sat in the Parisian drawing room of Yves Saint Lau-
rent and Pierre Bergé – but who was the designer,
people asked? The name was Gray, Eileen Gray – a
quizzical expression remained on most faces. They
can be forgiven their ignorance.
Eileen Gray, an Anglo-Irish artist, designer
and architect, is one of the most influential creatives
of the 20th century, and yet she remains one of the
most elusive, her work often attributed to others.
Amid the art and ideas that exploded in 1920s
Paris, she rubbed shoulders with Gertrude Stein’s
literary stars, drank cocktails with Djuna Barnes’
androgynous rebels, and talked theory with Le Cor-
busier’s modernist pioneers, but never committed
to a particular set.
Eileen Gray: “Formulas are nothing, people are everything.”
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