An auction taking place tomorrow is selling some of the designer Eileen Gray's most recognisable pieces
With a fan base that ranges from Yves Saint Laurent to architect Dermot Bannon, the work of pioneering modernist Eileen Gray has intergenerational and international appeal.
The permanent exhibition at Collins Barracks, Dublin 7, posthumously realised one of the designer and architect’s last ambitions, to have her work brought back to Ireland.
Philippe Garner, a leading scholar and collector of 20th-century design, was instrumental in spotlighting Gray’s legacy.
His life has also been bookended by two auctions featuring record-breaking prices for her work.
He recalls first encountering the Wexford-born woman’s work in the early 1970s, a mere week into his training on one of Sotheby’s first training schemes in early 20th-century decorative arts.
He was invited by an American collector Bob (Robert) Walker to visit his mansion block near Victoria Station.
“It was filled with wonderful treasures of art nouveau and the art deco periods. Standing in the middle of one of the rooms was a piece that took my breath away.
"It was a black lacquered brick cut screen.”
This room divider features in many museum collections, including MOMA, New York.
A dealer collector, Walker, came across Gray’s work in a Dutch journal and wondered if she was still alive.
Garner recalls, “He found Eileen Gray’s number in the phone book and cold-called her. He persuaded her to sell one of her screens.”
Garner first met Gray through her niece, the artist Prunella Clough, on the day of a seriously historic auction.
In November 1972, the last furniture of Jacques Doucet was brought for sale.
A fashion designer and contemporary of Gray’s, his 18th-century furniture collection had been sold in 1912 when he had decided to focus on contemporary pieces.
He set about furnishing his home with work by the most avant-garde artists of the day and spotted her work at the 1913 salon, Garner says.
After fading into obscurity, Eileen Gray’s work was rediscovered in 1972 when Le Destin, the four-panel lacquer screen Jacques Doucet had spotted in 1913, her only signed piece, sold for the then record-breaking price of 170,000 French Francs.
At the time, it was the most expensive piece of 20th century and set a record.
Yves Saint Laurent was the buyer and revived interest in her work.
It attracted a lot of attention, Garner recalls.
“I had been at the sale, and that same day I met her. I was 23, very young.”
How did she react to the sale’s result?
”With mild curiosity, as if it had happened a long time ago. She was very focused on today and showed me some maquettes of contemporary work.
"She wasn’t one to wander down memory lane. The apartment at 21 rue Bonapart in the Latin Quarter reflected her life,” he continues.
“I regret I never met Yves Saint Laurent, but I saw him at the Douoet sale gazing at the works.”
In 2009, Christie’s sold the Dragons armchair for almost €22 million (€21,905,000), establishing a new record for a piece of 20th-century decorative art.
“The atmosphere and buzz around the sale was something I’ve never experienced before or since,” Garner recalls.
“Queues around the block, people who wanted to see with their own eyes the works of art, furniture and furnishings, it was a kind of lying in state.
"It was a celebration, sad and joyous at the same time. We were experiencing the essence of another era.”
In all of it, “there is a continuity of sensibility, sophistication and creativity, of haute couture, a symbol of Paris as a city of style, Eileen Gray was at the heart of it.”
In tomorrow's deVeres art and design auction, being held online, there are numerous Eileen Gray pieces you can bid on.
Room To Improve presenter and architect Dermot Bannon’s favourite piece is lot 66, an example of the Transat chair originally designed around 1928 for use on the terrace of the villa E1027 at Roquebrune Cap Martin in the south of France.
Styled like an ocean liner, Gray designed the house for herself and Jean Badovici.
Inspired by the deckchairs used on transatlantic ocean liners, Le Fauteuil Transatlantique, abbreviated to Transat, features a sling seat and a pivoting head section, and is guiding between €4,000 and €6,000.
Lot 66a is the Bonaparte tubular steel chair.
Originally conceived as a piece for drawing rooms around 1935 Gray used one as a desk chair in her home on the rue Bonaparte.
The model here is by Vereingte Werkstatten and is guiding €2,000 to €3,000.
Lots 67 and 68 feature examples of the non-conformist chair, in white and black leather, respectively.
Each carries a guide price of between €2,000 and €3,000. There are further pieces to look at in lots 69 through to 74 inclusive.
Garner’s enthusiasm for Gray led to him writing a piece about her lacquer work.
“A friend, Andrew Hodgkinson, was studying interior design and decided to do a paper on her. I asked him if he’s like to meet her.”
He spoke to her extensively.
The pair remained lifelong friends, and a few years ago, Hodgkinson discovered the cassette tape of that interview in the back of a drawer.
That 1973 interview is now the subject of a 2020 film, In Conversation with Eileen Gray, which was directed by Michael Pitiot, Cloé Pitiot, and Philippe Garner.
Visit the Eileen Gray exhibition at the National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks. The deVeres auction takes place tomorrow, Tuesday, November 4th. View catalogue here.
