Recognized as a major pioneer of the Modern design movement Eileen Gray is an architect, stylist and pioneer of the Modern design movement. Her ideas for furniture rose above the gatherings of traditional furniture design and helped gave the way for modern furniture design.

Born on August 1878 close to the town of Enniscorthy, Ireland, Kathleen Eileen Moray Gray was the youngest offspring of the well-to-do Scottish-Irish Gray clan, Eileen Gray studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in the University College – London but later moved to the Académie Julian and the Académie Colarossi in Paris in Paris, France when her father passed away in 1900. Gray stayed in Paris until 1905, where she moved to London, England to care for her ill mother. During her stay in London, Gray studied lacquer-work under the tutelage of Seizo Sugawara, a Japanese lacquer-work establisher working at the Exposition Universelle in Paris.

Eileen Gray first started her profession as a lacquer artist, then as a furniture stylist and eventually as an architect. Gray used five strenuous years learning lacquer-work from Sugawara, even to the point where she acquired a agonizing “lacquer disease”. Even though her troubles, Gray yet persevered and exhibited her creations for the first time at the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs in 1913

Possibly what most persons remember Eileen Gray for today is that of her work at Rue de Lota subsurbs in Paris. In 1917, Gray was hired by Mathieu Levy to redecorate the interior of her apartment in Rue de Lota. The plan, which lasted until 1921, saw Gray designing everything from the rugs on the floor to the decorative “Block Screen” lacquered wall sections. It was also during the Rue de Lota plan where Gray presented some of her now-established furniture works, including the Bibendum chair, the Serpent chair, and the Biboquet table.

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