MIND OF THE ARTIST


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Above: Eileen Gray, View of the garden façade of E-1027, 1926-29. This was Gray’s first completed domestic architectural project. Copyright National Museum of Ireland


Left: Berenice Abbott, Portrait of Eileen Gray, Paris, 1926. © Berenice Abbott/Getty Images


IN OCTOBER 2013, AFTER NEARLY TWO YEARS OF REFURBISHMENT WORKS ON ITS MAIN BUILDING AT THE ROYAL HOSPITAL KILMAINHAM IN DUBLIN, THE IRISH MUSEUM OF MODERN ART (IMMA) REOPENED WITH A MAJOR RETROSPECTIVE OF THE WORK OF IRISH PAINTER, DESIGNER AND ARCHITECT EILEEN GRAY (1878–1976). Designed and produced by the Centre Pompidou in Paris, in collaboration


with Imma, the exhibition highlights Gray’s career as a leading member of the modern design movement. While Gray spent almost all of her working life in France, this exhibition celebrates her Irish roots. It also presents a number of previously unseen works that offer new insights into her career. Imma notes that Gray’s work has often been split into two distinct parts by


critics, with decorative arts on the one hand and architectural modernism on the other. This exhibition, however, “approaches her work as a whole, engaging, as she did, in drawing, painting, lacquering, interior decorating, architecture and photography”. Known in France during the early decades of the 20th century as a designer


in lacquer furniture and interiors, Gray began to experiment with architecture in the 1920s. The exhibition includes examples of her lacquer work, several carpet designs, samples from her Paris shop, Jean Désert, and key items of furniture she was commissioned to produce for the apartment of Madame Mathieu Levy, as well as pieces for her own home, Tempe à Pailla.


Issue 7 Autumn/Winter 2013 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 67


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