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The Artist: Painting, Sculpture, Photography

In the first two decades of the twentieth century, Paris was the artistic centre of the avant-garde. Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism,the Russian avant-garde, De Stijl and Surrealism coupled with a rejection of academic tradition made artists and designers question traditional picture-making and sculpture techniques through other media. Gray’s art student years at the Slade, the École Colarossi and then at the Académie Julien were pivotal to so many aspects of her future work – especially her lacquer work and her carpet designs. Both mediums continued to demonstrate her painterly skills. It was during these formative years that Gray met many of her artistic circles; artists, writers, sculptors, photographers, theorists and philosophers, who would have such a profound influence on her developing ideas.

3.1 Drawing of a nude study, 1903, paper, pencil, charcoal © NMI

Gray regrettably destroyed most of her artwork during her student period, with the exception of a very competent figurative study which dates approximately to 1903. This sketch shows the muscles, ligaments, a rib cage, body organs and a right-side profile of a woman.¹ Her talent as an artist was apparent after she had a painting, Derniers Rayons de soleil d’une Belle Journée, received at the 120 Salon des Artistes Français au Grand Palais.² Gray took her apartment on the rue Bonaparte in 1907 and by 1908 was already working directly in lacquer.³ From this moment Gray began to follow, and acquire into her library, the manifestoes from many major art movements. Gray’s library had numerous books on art history, painters, sculptors, architecture and their theories. Many were written by fellow artists or acquaintances whom she knew and many were signed by the original authors.

Gray also owned a number of art books which pre-date her formal art training in both London and Paris. Three particular texts were of importance; The Renaissance, 1873 by Walter Pater, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, 1890 by James Abbott NcNeill Whistler and The Early Work of Aubrey Beardsley, 1899 by John Lane. These three publications along with the writings of Irish writer Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), in whom Gray also had a profound interest, reveal Gray’s interest in the Aesthetic and Decadent movements. These movements were also linked with the Symbolist movement in France which had its beginnings with Charles Baudelaire’s (1821-1867) poem Les Fleurs du Mal, 1857 (Gray later used the title of Baudelaire’s poem Invitation au Voyage as a coded symbol and decorative feature on the wall of the living in the house E.1027 in 1929). The Symbolist movement’s ideas were anticipated in the work of the idealising neo-classicist Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898), in whose work Gray also expressed an interest. The influence of the ideas expressed in these publications is revealed in Gray’s artistic development; especially in her figurative artwork, her use of symbolism and her ideas on decorative art. They are significant not only in her early artistic career but also in her later career as a designer and architect.

The Aesthetic movement in England was influenced by the writings of the Oxford professor Walter Pater (1839-1894) and his essays, which he published in 1867-68, culminated in the book Studies in the History of the Renaissance in 1873 and later renamed in the second and later editions The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry.⁴ In this controversial book Pater maintained that our thoughts and lives were in constant flux and for this reason he emphasised that people should get the most out of life through sharp and eager observation. It was more as a designer and architect than as a painter that Gray adapted Pater’s ideas to suit her own requirements. She acutely observed the way that people interacted with her furniture and her architectural interiors, adapting her designs as such.

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) and Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898) were two of the key artists associated with the Aesthetic movement. They became the main leaders of the movement along with Oscar Wilde. Rejecting John Ruskin’s (1819-1900) idea of art as something useful or moral they advocated that art did not have a didactic role – rather they emphasised its aesthetic values. Nature was considered crude, lacking in design when compared to art. The use of symbols, sensuality and the correspondence between words, colours and music were key components. Gray related to these movements’ ideals of synaesthesia. Rather than conveying moral or sentimental messages they professed that the arts should engage with the haptic and cognitive senses, providing refined sensuous pleasure. Later Gray refined her ideas on synaesthesia especially in her lacquer work and interior design, creating rooms with furniture and furnishings which directly engaged with all of the occupant’s senses.

3.2 Drawing of a nude figure in a landscape, unknown date, paper, paint, crayon, pencil, collage © NMI

Whistler’s book The Gentle Art of Making Enemies emphasised how art was its own end and that nature was rarely right, relying upon the artist to improve it through his own vision.⁵ The artist’s responsibility was not to society but to himself to interpret through art, and neither to reproduce nor moralise what he saw. This book invited controversy, a self-authorised publication critical of those such as Ruskin, who accused him of throwing a pot of paint in the public’s face after Whistler had exhibited Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket in The Grosvenor Gallery, London in 1877.⁶ Gray maintained this distance in her treatment of her natural subject matter. One particular undated abstract, untitled, monograph completed in pencil and charcoal suggests the figure of a nude woman standing on rocks in front of a waterfall or possibly trees.⁷ Gray’s lack of colour and use of bleak monochromatic tones develops a muted, yet harmonious composition. A separation between the background and foreground occur with Gray’s simplistic treatment of the nude figure. The only suggestion of colour is developed through the pale blurred lines of a faint yellow, suggesting the reflection of the moon. As with the majority of Gray’s artwork this piece is unsigned.

Gray remained interested in the life, ideas and work of Whistler, purchasing in 1908 The Life of James McNeill Whistler written by his friends Joseph (1860-1926) and Elizabeth Pennell (1862-1952)⁸ which had an illustration of The Peacock Room which he completed in 1876-77.⁹ Whistler’s palette of brilliant greens and blues influenced the choice of colours used in some of her early lacquer work and in an early gouache completed in the same colours which was probably intended for a carpet.¹⁰

Gray’s interest in the work of Aubrey Beardsley was surprising as his work has become known in the larger context of Art Nouveau – a movement that Gray did not appreciate. She stated: ‘I don’t care to be absorbed into it as representing willingly a disciple of Art Nouveau’.¹¹ Gray owned a copy of The Early Work of Aubrey Beardsley, 1899 by John Lane.¹² But it was Beardsley’s use of a defined line with his caricatures which intrigued her. Her interest in caricatures also led her to purchase Les Caricatures de Puvis de Chavannes, by Marcelle Adam in 1906 and a copy of James Ensor, by Emile Verhaeren, in 1908.¹³ The nineteenth century became the heyday for caricature and by the mid-nineteenth century there was an enormous output of graphic and sculptural caricature, with a great number of artists like Beardsley, de Chavannes and Ensor dedicated to it. Caricatures by Aubrey Beardsley, James Ensor (1860-1949) and Puvis de Chavannes directly inspired the drawings which eventually culminated in Gray’s Ballet des Animaux, (The Animals’ Ballet) 1916-1919 and her fresco drawings from the 1940s. She appreciated these satirical drawings and their use of the grotesque. Whereas the caricatures of Beardsley, Ensor and de Chavannes mocked the salon, or the establishment, or documented relationships with other artists or friends, Gray’s characters are noted more for their graphic adventurousness rather than their allegorical nature.

The drawings for Ballet des Animaux are a surprising contrast to Gray’s better known abstract art work which adheres to the ideas and principles of early twentieth-century art movements. They also reveal Gray’s interest in children. Gray’s designs have looked to children on several occasions and she had explored furniture for their rooms and playrooms.¹⁴ Throughout her career Gray was considered withdrawn, reserved, a devotee of her work, aloof and somewhat stuffy, however the light-hearted theme for this ballet and its characters reveal her conviviality, her sense of irony and her wit.

Another influence for the creation of this ballet was Sergei Diaghilev’s (1872-1929) Ballet Russes production of Schéhérazade which opened on 4 June 1910 at the Théâtre National de l’Opéra in Paris. The music was by Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov (1844-1908) and the set and costumes were created by Léon Bakst (1866-1924). Gray purchased two reproductions of Bakst’s drawings of the décor and costumes but it is uncertain whether she actually saw the performance.¹⁵ The ballet had a profound effect in French artistic circles, sending a rippling effect through the decorative arts, with the use of fauve and symbolist colours, sumptuous and exotic materials and a strong sense of exoticism. Gray rejected the exoticism yet the use of colour and unusual materials appeared in her work throughout her lifetime.¹⁶

3.3 Damia, by Paul O’Doye, 1909-12, black and white photograph © NMI

Gray had a long-time interest in stage design and encouraged by her friend the famous actor Marisa Damia (1892-1978)¹⁷ who was introduced to her by Gaby Bloch (1879-1957), she began the drawings of scenario and character sketches dated 1916-1919 for Ballet des Animaux. At that time a number of artists were designing ballets. Rolfe de Mare (1888-1964) along with the post-impressionist painter Nils von Dardel (1888-1943) created the Ballet Suédois at the Théâtre de Champs-Élysées and by 1924 Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978) curated the scenography and the costumes for Pirandello’s La Giara.¹⁸ Before the First World War Comte Étienne de Beaumont (1883-1956) and his wife, a leading couple in Parisian society known for their extravagant parties and masquerade balls, financed a number of ballets, and with the assistance of Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) presented at the Soirées de Paris which combined ballet, poetry and theatre at the Théâtre de la Cigale in Montmartre. Throughout her life Gray had a particular interest in the combined illustrative and poetry work of filmmaker Jean Cocteau, whom she knew through her circles, and she purchased a copy of Dessins, in 1923.¹⁹ She also saw his film Le Testament d’Orphée (The Testament of Orpheus) in 1960 and stated that she was bitterly disappointed with it.²⁰ Gray also had a copy of Belgium poet Paul Méral’s (1895-1946) Dit des Jeux du monde, a poem which was adapted into a play.²¹ The costumes and dance were created by Guy. P. Fauconnet (1882-1960) and the music by Arthur Honegger (1892-1955). Honegger was commissioned to write the score in 1918. It was a mimed ballet and was staged at the Théâtre Musical Moderne du Vieux Colombier, directed by J. Bathoiengel. It was recited by actors wearing masks peaking in unison. All of these different sources influenced Gray’s design.²²

3.4 Le Batiscope for Ballet des Animaux, 1916-19, paper, pencil, ink © NMI

The characters for the ballet were given nonsensical names such as L’Inconnu, Le Cerf Vicieux, La Fau Freluche, Le Mandibus, Le Batiscope, Le Nincompoop - who walks backwards - and La Pravasse.²³ The sketches for costumes and masks illustrate the human figures inside them and highlight how they would move. They are playful and ingenious in their concepts. Gray states in the sketches that it is ‘a ballet for animals, pardon, a ballet by animals for animals, or maybe a book’.²⁴ However, the designs were never realised into an actual production.

3.5 Characters for Ballet des Animaux, 1916-19, paper, pencil, ink © NMI

3.6 Le Nincompoop for Ballet des Animaux, 1916-19, paper, pencil, ink © NMI

3.7 Man running in costume for Ballet des Animaux, 1916-19, paper, pencil, ink © NMI

3.8 Text for Ballet des Animaux, 1916-19, paper, ink © NMI

3.9 Figure for Ballet des Animaux, 1916-19, paper, pencil, ink © NMI

During the 1940s Gray revisited the characters which she had created for Ballet des Animaux and combined her artistic talents with her architecture when she completed a series of studies for murals. By this time Gray had purchased Les Ballets Russes de Serge de Diaghilew, Décors et costumes, 1930 by Michel Georges-Michel and Waldemar George which had illustrations of work by artists such as Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Natalia Goncharova (1881-1962), Marie Laurencin (1883-1956), Georges Braque (1882-1963), Henri Matisse (1869-1954) and André Derain (1880-1954).²⁵

The first drawing was completed for her hypothetical Children’s Day Care Centre, a two-storey building which had a playroom area.²⁶ This lyrical drawing was intended for the wall of the nursery and consists of abstract figurative forms and Gray has written in French that it is a mural for children.²⁷ It was similar to another fresco drawing for a children’s bedroom which Gray did in the early 1940s.²⁸ Gray also revisited these sketches for murals and developed them further when she designed the Worker’s Club project in 1947.²⁹ The characters in this fresco appear simplified and more abstract than her previous mural designs. However, her emphasis on line in her rendition of the characters recalls the work of Beardsley, Ensor and de Chavannes.³⁰ The drawings included dancers, which were cheerful and light-hearted, inspired by the characters created by Matisse and Laurencin, and the costumes of Goncharova illustrated in Michel Georges-Michel and Waldemar George’s publication. Gray also included a ferret, the Nincompoop again, a donkey and a dinosaur-type reptile with two legs and a long neck with a large head. Each of the characters is treated like a caricature. No sense of naturalism or space is suggested and there is a strong emphasis on line throughout.

3.10 Drawing for a mural for a nursery, 1940s, paper, pencil © NMI

Gray arrived in Paris just after the Fauves exhibited at the Salon d’Automne of 1905 causing a sensation through their use of virulent brushstrokes and violent colours. Though short lived, the movement of Fauvism was remarkably international in its range, attracting artists to Paris from different nationalities. Gray appreciated the verve with which they infused their forms with expressiveness but none of her art work displayed Fauvist tendencies. She was also friends with the Fauvist artist George Roualt (1871-1958).³¹ Then, with the completion of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon in 1907, with its rich diversity of sources in Ancient Iberian art, African masks and stone carving, Pablo Picasso created a new language which sent ripples through the world of art for years to come.³² Soon followed by Georges Braque, they took simultaneous viewpoints and produced ‘high Analytic’ or ‘Hermetic’ compositions, using a muted palette. Their favourite motifs were still life with musical instruments, bottles, pitchers, glasses, newspapers, playing cards, figures or the human face. Landscapes were rare. Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918), the renowned writer and art critic, and an associate of Gray’s, became a chief protagonist for the Cubists. Gray purchased his publication Les Peintres Cubistes, (The Cubist Painters) in 1913.³³ He believed that ‘Cubism can in no way be considered a systematic doctrine. It does, however constitute a school, and the painters who make up this school want to transform their art by returning to the original principles with regard to line and inspiration, just as the Fauves – and many of the Cubists were at one time Fauves – returned to original principles with regard to their colour and composition’. This publication explores the work of Cubist painters and their ideas. It was a collection of essays and reviews, written between 1905 and 1912. The text became the essential text in twentieth-century art and presented the poet and critic’s aesthetic meditations on nine painters: Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Jean Metzinger (1883-1956), Albert Gleizes (1881-1953), Marie Laurencin, Juan Gris (1887-1927), Fernand Léger (1881-1955), Francis Picabia (1879-1953) and Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968). Some of these painters later befriended Gray and with others she later worked on various projects. In the publication Apollinaire advocates a return to pure painting and strives to disentangle four distinct tendencies within Cubism. He speaks of an inner and essential reality whose dictates cubism obeys.

3.11 Abstract drawing, 1916-17, card, pencil, charcoal © NMI

Picasso and Braque’s earlier more austere form of Analytical Cubism was short lived, but it still had an effect on Gray’s development. Gray looked directly to Georges Braque and Analytical Cubism with an early charcoal drawing dated 1916-17 which became a study for a later lacquer door panel. She was more influenced not by his approach to monochromatic colour but by the patterns of faceted form.³⁴

From 1911 the monochromatic colours of Analytical Cubism gave way to the use of bright, vivid colours where pictorial composition became more important than representation. With Synthetic Cubism, as it became known, Picasso and Braque, amongst others, enriched their pictures with references to the physical world, adding words or slogans to paintings. In 1912 Braque began using the technique of papier collé or collage. Newspaper was an early favourite ingredient.³⁵ Realising the tactile qualities of collage Pablo Picasso added more provocative elements to his papier collé with the inclusion of razor blades and broken glass. These were combined with charcoal or pencil by Braque, while Picasso and Juan Gris combined them with oil. Painting now possessed the tactile qualities of sculpture. Whether Gray actually met Braque is debatable; however, she was introduced to Picasso by the writer Henri Pierre Roché (1879-1959), and an interest in the different types of Cubism and the work of several Cubist painters penetrated every aspect of her work for decades to come.³⁶

3.12 Newspaper collage, circa 1920, board, newspaper, paper, paint © NMI

Synthetic Cubism formed a new pictorial language for Gray and she enriched her pictorial compositions through the use of lettering, sheets of music and newspapers. In one early work on board she also created a collage entirely of newspaper.³⁷ Gray also explored the use of wallpaper, theatre programmes and posters advertisements. Then from the mid to late 1920s Gray began using geographical motifs from maps in her artwork. Gray was similar to Braque and Picasso in that her use of lettering usually formed a coded visual image for the viewer to decipher.³⁸ Her fondness for travel and maps appeared on the wall of the living room of the house E.1027 on which Gray hung a large marine chart with stencilled letters which acted as a code. In her own house Tempe à Pailla, in the dining area, she placed a large map of the excavations at Teotihuacán in Mexico. When the Sunday Times journalist Bruce Chatwin (1940-1989) interviewed Gray at age 93 in her apartment in Paris he was so impressed by a collage which she had completed of a map of Patagonia that he offered to purchase it.³⁹ His interest resulted in his journey there and his most renowned publication Patagonia, 1977. These geographical locations and motifs from maps all have meaning and symbolism in Gray’s work. As a result she created motifs, representing geographical locations, which she used in her collages. One collage is of the Roquebrune coastline in the south of France and may have been intended as a mural design similar to the marine map with the stencilled words by Baudelaire Invitation au voyage in the living room of E.1027. The collage consists of a bespeckled ground with black, off white, purple, blue, grey and white. Gray had an enduring interest in remote locales and the overall effect is nautical. A central motif composed of curved line represents the exact location of the house E.1027 and where it is situated at Roquebrune.⁴⁰ Maps appear in other collages which she did during this period using a similar system.⁴¹

3.13 Roquebrune collage, 1926, paper, paint © NMI

Other gouaches contain architectural motifs or represented abstract plans of buildings.⁴² One collage completed in 1931-34 is a site plan for her house Tempe à Pailla.⁴³ There are similarities in the shapes, forms and layout of a coloured site plan which is in Gray’s archives.⁴⁴ This abstract collage is a larger scale version of the plan. Gray had a number of collage pieces which she used as stencils in her collages.⁴⁵ These ‘design elements’ as she called them were also used in some of her carpet designs and appear in her architectural portfolios.⁴⁶ One large square gouache, with a black speckled ground with black linear designs, has in the upper right corner a half circle and plant-like formation similar to the collage elements.⁴⁷ Gray used some of these elements to represent trees in a hypothetical architectural project she designed titled L’Epopée Irlandaise or the Irish Epic. Dating from 1946-47, photographs remain of the model of the stage set, with rocks and trees.⁴⁸

3.14 Green, white, blue gouache and collage, 1930s, paper, paint © NMI

By the 1930s Gray changed her style again, paring down her use of coded letters and words. She began a series of black and white Cubist-inspired paper collages with triangular motifs.⁴⁹ She also injected these monochromatic collages with singular motifs completed in bold bright colours.⁵⁰ Gray also used circular motifs and circles throughout, with these black and white gouaches which were visually highly effective.⁵¹ Some gouaches she actually signed on the back.⁵²

3.15 Black, grey and white gouache with yellow, 1930s, paper, paint © NMI

Gray remained interested in the work of both Braque and Picasso. She purchased the surrealist magazine Documents 3 – published in 1929 which had an article written by Carl Einstein entitled Notes sur le Cubisme with images by Picasso and Braque.⁵³ However, in her notes it is the work of Braque in this particular article which caught her attention. The article illustrates four paintings by Braque which he did in 1912-1914; two figurative works dating 1912 and October 1913, Le Sacré Coeur, 1913, and a Still Life from 1914.⁵⁴ Gray also continued to follow Picasso’s career. She attended an exhibition of Pablo Picasso’s work and preliminary draw- ings completed for Guernica in 1938, held at the New Burlington Galleries, London. Gray also kept the exhibition catalogue in her personal library.⁵⁵ She was obviously aware of the social and politically charged art which Picasso produced and by 1938 these were ideas which she herself was exploring at the time. She was very much being directed by an interest in the working-class environment. The idea that modern art was capable of producing an impassioned accusation that was triggered by current political events appealed to Gray greatly. This painting transcended mere social criticism to document the destructive side of human behaviour. Picasso describes in this painting not the German attack on the Basque village but the consequences of that attack. In social terms Eileen Gray’s work aspired to address the consequences of a luxurious and elitist lifestyle and she looked to mass-produced pieces and mass-produced housing for the working class. It was different to the social and political statement of Picasso’s painting but the underlying social implications were the same. Gray saw the face of destruction first hand during the war and this influenced her approach to creating a modern society which catered to people of all levels. Picasso said that ‘Painting was not invented to decorate houses. It is an instrument of war for attack and defence against the enemy’. This statement informed her later attitude against mural painting being used as mere decoration for interiors.

Gray also owned a copy of Du Cubisme et des moyens de le comprendre published in 1920 by the painter Albert Gleizes.⁵⁶ Gleizes had the most influence over Eileen Gray’s early lacquer work and in some of her carpet designs.⁵⁷ From about 1910 onward Gleizes had become directly involved with Cubism, both as an artist and as a theorist of the movement. His style had become stripped, linear, consisting of multiple forms and facets where he accentuated colours. He met regularly with Jean Metzinger, Fernand Léger, Robert Delauney (1885-1941) and Henri Le Fauconnier (1881-1946). After exhibiting at the Salon des Indépendents in 1911 and then as a group at the Salon d’Automne where their work caused a sensation, Gleizes was introduced to Picasso by Apollinaire and he joined the Puteaux Group. Influenced by the ideas of Henri Poincaré (1854-1912) and Henri Bergson (1859-1941), both of whom Gray read, Gleizes began to represent an object which was viewed from numerous viewpoints. This technique became known as relative motion. Gleizes believed that to understand the space of Cubist painters one needed to examine the German mathematician Bernhard Riemann’s (1826-1866) mathematical series theorems. He also stated that the only way to understand this treatment of space would be to include and integrate the fourth dimension whereby physics, space and time are unified to create a continuum or fourth dimension. Cubism with its multiple viewpoint perspective achieved, in their opinion, a better representation of the world. Gleizes argued that one cannot know the external world; therefore he didn’t attempt to analyse or describe an actual visual reality. Instead he said that one can only know sensations. He sought to synthesise the world through sensation, using volumes to create the structure of objects. As a result he simplified his forms and modulated their shape and their colour in relation to one another. Gleizes’s theories on the notion of ‘Translation and Rotation’ are where flat planes are set in motion simultaneously in order to create space and their relationship with the subject matter.

Gray appreciated how the Cubists’ aim was to completely eschew time and space in favour of relative motion and how they created a sensory experience and the dynamics of the fourth dimension on a flat canvas. It was to become more relevant in her work as a designer and architect than in her gouaches and drawings which she produced during this period. From 1924-26 Gray did a series of pencil drawings. One abstract drawing completed in charcoal and pencil shows a number of geometrical motifs which she used in her carpet designs from this period. However, her rendition of the geometrical forms reflects the work of Albert Gleizes and Andre Lhote (1885-1962).⁵⁸ This drawing also recalls motifs which Gray used on a lacquer door panel dated 1916, completed for the fashion designer Jacques Doucet (1853-1929).⁵⁹ Gray’s treatment of these motifs and geometrical forms in this drawing look to the ideas of ‘Translation and Rotation’ as the forms appear in motion, creating space for the subject matter.

Apollinaire helped create the phrase ‘Orphic’ Cubism. After Gleizes and Lhote it was Robert Delauney who became its foremost practitioner. This philosophical notion about the passage of time, or simultaneity, was a concept which was also espoused by the Italian Futurists. The later phase of Cubism became thus more colourful and decorative and had many foreign adherents.

There was a remarkable link between the avant-garde artists, sculptors and writers of the pre-war period. Apollinaire created the literary and art review Les Soirées de Paris. Along with his contributors Apollinaire acted as impresario and publicist for the avant-garde movement by illustrating its principles in each issue. Gray owned a copy of Les Soirées de Paris, No.22, 15 March 1914.⁶⁰ She was particularly interested in this issue which contained letters by the Symbolist writer Alfred Jarry (1873-1907) and six colour illustrations by Francis Picabia. One illustration of Danseuse étoile sur un transatlantique, 1913 with its abstract planar composition inspired a later charcoal drawing by Gray.⁶¹ In this work she depicts an abstracted seascape of a life boat moored at docklands, with a pier receding into the background.⁶² Though completed many years later, the subject matter of this piece is possibly inspired by her close friend and architect Jean Badovici (1893-1956) who had patented the design for his E-7 lifeboat in 1934. Gray had kept Badovici’s notes on submarine and lifeboat design.⁶³

3.16 Charcoal drawing, circa 1934, paper, pencil © NMI

Modernity became a central theme in Paris from 1880 through to the First World War. Avant-garde artists and writers were acutely aware of the developing modern landscape. They shared an interest in new technology, particularly in its relationship to speed. The Italian Futurists celebrated the railways, the motor car and the airplane. The Manifesto of Futurism, written by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944) was published on the front page of the French newspaper Le Figaro on 20 February 1909. The Futurists had an enormous impact on the work of Eileen Gray, especially after she visited an exhibition of their work at the Galerie Bernheim Jeune Paris from the 5-24 February, 1912. Gray kept the catalogue which contained a joint statement in French by the artists: Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916), Carlo Carrà (1881-1966), Luigi Russolo (1881-1947), Giacomo Balla (1871-1958) and Gino Severini (1883-1966).⁶⁴ It also contained a copy of the Futurist manifesto. The group advocated modernism. Their ideas were controversial, extolling war as the only hygiene of the world. They revelled in technology, a similarity evident with Gray. Dynamism, motion, movement and speed were all an incantatory formula for the Futurists which led to Marinetti’s proverbial saying that a racing car was more beautiful than the Nike of Samothrace.

3.17 Charcoal drawing, circa 1920, paper, pencil © NMI

From the moment that Gray saw the exhibition at the Galerie Bernheim Jeune she adopted their ideas. A charcoal and pencil drawing which Gray did shows a Futurist-style landscape with roads and crossroads and abstract forms.⁶⁵ In 1912 Gray had also visited America with her sister Thora, and two friends Gaby Bloch and Florence Gardiner (1878-1963). Gray was fascinated by New York, especially the skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan. The Futurists adored the industrial city with its skyscrapers and tunnels, advocating that new cities be built as the old were torn down. Gray was impressed with their ideas on modernity and machinery.

The success of the new art movements and the successful reign of internationalism in the Paris arts was also in part due to the powerful xenophilism of the upper middle classes and of the enlightened aristocracy. The presence of such large numbers of foreign artists transformed the art scene in Paris by serving to increase the gap between the official art and independent art (represented by the Salon d’Automne and the Salon des Indépendants). These foreign artists were to contribute enormously to the emergence in France of the avant-garde art movement.

With the developments of Fauvism, Cubism and Futurism, abstraction became a prominent issue for many artists and theorists, who were influenced by the writings of Wassily Kandinsky’s (1866-1944) essay On the Spiritual in Art, 1910. Extracts were published in 1914 in Percy Wyndham Lewis’s periodical Blast of which Gray owned a copy.⁶⁶ His writings and ideas spread rapidly throughout art circles promoting concepts of pure art, total abstraction and the rejection of subject matter. Gray’s development into pure abstraction began a move from figurative, seen in her early lacquer screens and panels which she produced for Jacques Doucet, to pure abstract, such as her interiors completed for Mme Mathieu-Lévy and her total abstract carpet designs of the early 1920s. All throughout linear graphics were a constant. Initially Gray began using large swirling lines, which gradually progressed into sweeping thin sharp lines, inspired by Futurism and the work of Giacomo Balla. Her work then displayed thin curling lines inspired by Paul Klee (1879-1940) which finally evolved into the use of more rigid geometric thin lines and forms. One gouache in black, grey and beige is a perfect example of these swirling geometric lines.⁶⁷ Another black and white speckled gouache contains a sweeping lightning bolt motif which runs from top to bottom and is similar to the sweeping motifs of the lacquer panels at the salon in Mme Mathieu-Lévy’s Rue de Lota apartment.⁶⁸

3.18 Black, grey and beige speckled gouache with swirling lines, 1920s, paper, card, crayon and pencil © NMI

Gray revisited this style of work in the early 1930s using a much brighter palette. One gouache has a bright yellow ground with abstract motifs in white in the centre. Thin black lines, coming from the border’s edges, intersect the central motifs. It is incomplete but the design resembles quite closely the back of a lacquer door panel design with raised sabi which appeared in an article in Vogue in August 1917.⁶⁹ The motifs used at the centre are also reminiscent of the designs of the Futurists and the work of Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), notably the Nude Descending a Staircase no.2, 1912.⁷⁰ Gray seldom used yellow for the entire background of her gouaches and collages. It is possible that was an early study for another collage which she completed during the early 1930s.⁷¹

3.19 Black and white speckled gouache with white lightening motif, 1920s, paper, card, crayon and pencil © NMI

From 1918-1921 Gray produced a number of black and white gouaches with thin straight lines. Stylistically these gouaches were a precursor to three lacquer screens, one large one produced for a client called Mme Jean Henri-Labourdette and two small ones, which Gray made in the early twenties – all with a variation on the theme of incised linear decoration in a deep brown lacquer ground. These were shown in Wendingen, published in 1924. One black gouache with thin white lines stylistically looks to the simplicity of Paul Klee’s artwork from the late 1920s and early 1930s. Like Klee’s painting dating from this era Gray’s designs are punctuated with symbolic references which are difficult to decipher. They provide an orientation, pointing out directions, set signals, but without entirely answering the pictorial riddle. In one particular gouache a long white line runs horizontally from left to right. Out of this line evolves a series of others completed in chalk.⁷²

3.20 Black with white circle gouache and collage, 1920s, paper, paint © NMI

Russian Suprematism and its successor Constructivism, as well as the Dutch movement De Stijl were deeply rooted in an attempt to change the world and to create a functional, normative art. These movements envisioned a collective, universal art for all, removed from individualism and subjectivity. Russian avant-garde, especially in its Suprematist phase, was rooted in pre-revolutionary anarchism and later condemned by the Russian communist revolutionary and politician Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924). Suprematism was more romantic and mythical, while Constructivism was more futuristic and technological. Gray’s artwork and series of carpet gouaches which she designed in 1918-1921 also recalls the work of Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935) and Ivan Kliun (1873-1943). Both Malevich’s Suprematist Composition, 1915⁷³ and Kliun’s painting Suprematism, 1915-16⁷⁴ reoccur in several of Gray’s compositions. Malevich and Kliun used thin lines in various colours on a white ground. Malevich emphasised reducing objects to their primary forms and colours. Kazimir Malevich’s use of the black squares was revisited by Gray several times and she produced a series of squares directly inspired by his ideas, either being a play on the square itself or with the deliberate interjection or placing of a circular or triangular motif; Navy blue square with a white stripe,⁷⁵ Black and speckled square,⁷⁶ and Black with white circle.⁷⁷

Gray owned a copy of Classique Baroque Moderne, written by Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931) which was an important publication expressing the ideas of the De Stijl movement.⁷⁸ The movement emphasised a return to basic, primary colours, and the use of geometric and rectilinear shapes through abstraction. This often involved balancing one colour and one form against another. Gray also acquired for her library Neo Plasticisme by Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) who advocated these ideas and envisaged in his art the formulation of a universal ideal of happiness.⁷⁹ He considered himself to be the prophet and his essay Neo Plasticisme was dedicated to its ideals. Having read this document Gray established her first contact with the De Stijl architects after she displayed in Amsterdam in 1922. Gray saw their work at the 1923 De Stijl Architecture Exhibition at Léonce Rosenburg’s Galerie l’Effort Moderne. It was to be of seminal importance to her career and ultimately led to friendship with many of the key members of the movement. Mondrian advocated in his publication that ‘It is not enough that form be reduced to its quintessence, that the proportion of the whole work be harmonious; on the contrary, the entire work must be only the plastic expression of relationships and must disappear as particularity’. For Gray’s De Stijl-inspired artworks she set out to create a pure art composed of pure elements where straight lines, angles and bold graphic designs came into play. Gray produced a body of work with asymmetrical, rectangular grids lines of varying widths. In comparison to her earlier work she produced large-scale gouaches playing with various ideas, using different colour schemes or smudging the edges of her compositions. One brown and beige large gouache clearly demonstrates ideas from the De Stijl, however, Gray’s painterly effects are apparent as she uses washes not blocks of colour.⁸⁰ Another large gouache painted in bold red and pink dating from 1925 consists of pure geometric shapes, its overall design being highly effective.⁸¹ It is a second variation of another gouache which Gray had worked on, where she had decided to enlarge the central abstract motif and change the palette.⁸²

3.21 Brown and beige gouache, 1925, paper, paint © NMI

During the 1930s and 1940s Gray created a number of gouaches and artworks that were not informed by any one particular art movement. These included a body of work with a speckled ground in a variety of colours which display her more painterly techniques.⁸³ Many of these have a dark black or green ground with speckled forms that extend inward either horizontally or vertically.⁸⁴ By mid-1935 to the early 1940s this speckled painterly aspect of Gray’s artwork at times took over the entire picture plane.⁸⁵ Sometimes the speckled effect took on specific shapes like jigsaws – which are cut-outs mounted on card and then deliberately placed on the gouache.⁸⁶ Initially the colours and motifs used in the collage elements on such backgrounds were vivid in colour.⁸⁷ By the mid to late 1940s Gray’s palette became increasingly monochromatic and at times these gouaches were indebted to the artwork of the American Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) and others within that movement. The way in which Pollock did not obfuscate technique in his drip paintings and the way he textured the canvas, building up layers of paint through the use of various pigments and methodologies intrigued Gray. But she was later quite critical of this movement in letters to her niece sent during the 1960s. Her choice of palette and this Pollock-type speckled effect occurs in a body of work which Gray produced from 1940-1949.⁸⁸

3.22 Speckled blue gouache with blue abstract motifs, late 1930s, paper, paint © NMI

Certain themes are also apparent in her artwork. During the early 1920s nautical themes become apparent. One gouache has an abstract fish motif, as if it was an imprint, and details include its mouth and upper and lower fins.⁸⁹ Fish appeared in Gray’s work as early as 1916, and in Vogue magazine, August 1917, a sand-grey lacquer table top decorated with white fish which dart about in a black pool was shown.⁹⁰ Gray also did a carpet design of the Japanese koi fish and titled it Poissons which was completed between 1913 and 1917.⁹¹ With another green, white and blue collage and gouache Gray created an underwater effect.⁹² The colour and palette which she uses in this collage resemble another which she produced during the same period.⁹³

At times Gray’s palette is unconventional, evading the use of bold colour she opted in some of her pastel work soft browns, blues and pale oranges. In one artwork entitled Hantage Gray has treated the motifs in a sfumato technique, smudging the outline of what appears to be a still life.⁹⁴ Another unfinished abstract collage of the early 1930s has a ground in a beige colour with two superimposed stripes which run vertically to the left and right in a deep burnt orange and brown colour.⁹⁵

3.23 Hantage, 1930s, paper, crayon, chalk, paint © NMI

During the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s Gray worked on monotypes, collages, and bas-reliefs. She constantly challenged herself and felt that artists who had focused on decorative art had not always succeeded because ‘Decorative Art which ought not to be decorative but means making new forms from old and sometimes new materials; pottery, cork aggloméré, straw, inventing’.⁹⁶ Gray returned to the various styles and movements which had influenced her. In one particular collage she paid homage to Eduardo Chillida (1924-2002), a Spanish sculptor noted for his abstract, monumental pieces. His first exhibition in France was in Paris in 1950. He continued to have solo exhibitions in the Galerie Maeght and the Galerie Bertram in Paris during the 1950s and 1960s. Using an original poster as the medium on which to begin her design, Gray returned to her sources of Analytical Cubism, painting out the lettering and then stencilling it in the corner.⁹⁷ As with many of Gray’s experiments it remained incomplete.

André Breton (1896-1966) and Louis Aragon (1897-1982) published the Surrealist Manifesto in 1924 and a second in 1930. Gray had a copy of the first edition and had dealings with both men through an interior design commission which she received from Jacques Doucet in Paris. At that time she socialised in their circles, having many mutual friends in common.⁹⁸ The group was led by Breton, Paul Éluard (1895-1952) and Pierre Reverdy (1889-1960). Surrealism was concerned with visualising the inharmonious, dissonant side of human existence. Surrealists proclaimed the significance of the unconscious mind, which Gray was deeply interested in – states of hallucination; dream, intoxication and ecstasy which Breton stated were just as real as situations from everyday life. Gray’s interest in dreams also enticed her to purchase No.63 Visages du Monde, 15 May 1939 with an edition devoted to Le Rêve dans L’Art et La Littérature (The Dream in Art and Literature).⁹⁹

The mission the Surrealists set themselves was to expose previously repressed feelings and images, visualising the whole human existence, which included its absurd contradictions, its terrors and underlying humour. Breton pronounced that it was pure psychic automatism, that is to say that the Surrealist artist would delve below the conscious mind with its controls and inhibitions and reproduce what his or her subconscious inspiration dictated. Besides a copy of the manifesto Gray also had two issues of the periodical Le Surréalisme au Service de la Révolution, 1931 and Le Surréalisme en 1947.¹⁰⁰ Le Surréalisme en 1947, also known as Prière de toucher (Please touch) was the limited edition catalogue that accompanied the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme – the first post-war Surrealist art exhibition to be staged in the Galerie Maeght in Paris in July-August 1947. Centred upon the theme of myth, the exhibition was organised by Marcel Duchamp and André Breton. The venue was transformed by Gray’s friend and architect Frederick Kiesler (1890-1965) into a complex labyrinth of orchestrated rooms intended to spiritually reawaken French society after the horrors of World War II. Inset in the catalogue are 24 original prints by leading Surrealist artists including Max Ernst (1891-1976), Joan Miró (1893-1983), who Gray knew and Yves Tanguy (1900-1955). The catalogue was covered in hand-painted, pre-fabricated foam and rubber breasts that were adhered to a circular piece of black velvet and affixed to the cardboard slip-cover of the catalogue. In the typically mischievous manner of Surrealism, the back of the catalogue playfully read ‘please touch’; inviting the readers to fondle the artificial breast adorning the cover before accessing the pages of the manuscript. The Surrealist movement interested Gray, and though her artwork never displayed surrealist tendencies, their influence was felt in her treatment of her subject matter in her artistic photographs. This was seen in artistic photographs by Breton and Éluard which she saw in Le Surréalisme au Service de la Révolution.

Throughout her career Gray had composed a visual photographic anthology of her furniture, interiors and her architecture, comprising of 1,070 images. This was not just a portfolio of her work – there were subtle details in the photographs which became Gray’s trademark. As a result pieces – for example tables – had objects placed on them, cups and saucers, or books. Her photographs had a humanist element to them as if someone had just left the room. She was an excellent commercial photographer, taking photographs of her furniture displays at her shop Jean Désert, and often placing objects on furniture to give them a human touch and make the objects appear as if they were used. Many of these commercial images she treated as though they were still lifes. She also took all the photographs of her house for the magazine L’Architecture Vivante and for her portfolios of work which she compiled in 1956.¹⁰¹

Beginning in the 1920s Gray began taking artistic photographs which concentrated on light and shade. Inspired by the photographs taken of Rodin’s sculptures by her friend Stephen Haweis and Henry Coles (b.1875) Gray embarked on a series of Still Life and Tablescapes in the 1920s. Haweis and Coles were the first of Rodin’s photographers to experiment with artificial lighting using acetylene gas lamps for example. This type of lighting provided a strong contrast in their images which was reinforced by the biochromated-gelatin print. Now associated with the Pictorialist movement, the two British artists took about 200 photographs for Rodin in under two years. Pictorialists manipulated the photograph, by ‘creating’ an image not just recording it. Some of Gray’s still life portraits of the 1920s follow this strain, appearing to lack a sharp focus with blurred shadows. She at times treated these photographs like paintings, creating an atmosphere by way of projecting an emotional intent into the viewer’s realm of imagination. Other still life photographs are clearly modernist in style and are sharply focused, recording minutiae in a picture. Then in the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s two other movements had a profound effect on her photographs. The first was Surrealism. Gray owned a copy of Le Surréalisme au Service de la Révolution – a periodical issued in Paris from 1930 and 1933. Gray owned a copy of the issues no.3 and 4 from 1931.¹⁰² Issue no. 3 had a numbers of Illustrations, including photographs of Surrealist objects by Breton, Gala Éluard (1894-1982), Valentine Hugo (1887-1968), Joan Miró, Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) and Salvador Dalí (1904-1989). Gray’s Tablescape, dating from the 1920s and consisting of an African mask hanging on the wall and a still life composed of inanimate objects, directly looks to Breton and Éluard’s still life studies in this issue. Her treatment of the composition and the choice of subject matter are directly inspired by their work. The other movement was the Bauhaus, which directly inspired her photographs of the 1930s, especially the work of László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946). Gray owned a copy of Malerei, Fotografie, Film (Painting, Photography, Film).¹⁰³ This landmark Bauhaus publication highlighted the debate between the media of painting, photography and film, especially in the recognition of the two latter being considered as art forms. In 1937, 35mm Kodachrome film first became available and Gray embarked – especially during the war years – on a series of images, creating fluid abstract compositions. In this series of images Gray emphasised photography as an extension of human sight, which compensated for the shortcomings of retinal perception, notably in the works Anneaux de rideaux, 1930s, and Torse en marbre du 21 rue Bonaparte, 1930s. Then by the 1950s Gray began to concentrate on natural and industrial landscapes, which were empty and devoid of human contact, with the series Église à Saint Tropez and Port Grimaud. By the late 1950s she had returned to outdoor still life compositions consisting of wood in the series Bois pétrifié.

3.24 Still Life, 1950, black and white photograph © Private Collection

3.25 Tablescape, 1920, black and white photograph © Private Collection

3.26 Still Life, 1920s, black and white photograph © Private Collection

3.27 Torse en marbre du 21 rue Bonaparte, 1930s, black and white photograph © Private Collection

3.28 Port Grimaud, 1950s, black and white photograph © Private Collection

3.29 Bois pétrifié, late 1950s, black and white photograph © Private Collection

3.30 Photographic collage, circa 1920, photographic paper, paint © NMI

From the 1930s through to the 1960s Gray also produced a series of photographic collages. The earliest dates from 1935 and consists of a photograph of white scratched lines haphazardly arranged in accordance with three adhesive black, plastic curvilinear and straight cuts running through the centre.¹⁰⁴ It recalled the Paul Klee-like lines on the back of the 1913 red lacquer screen Le Destin, and the swirling line motifs on the walls of the salon of the Rue de Lota apartment. With this early photographic collage she was simply exploring abstraction through the use of photographic forms. The collage, unfinished, also appears in photographs on Gray’s desk in her home, Tempe à Pailla.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s she returned to photographic collage, producing two large collages, which are nearly identical to one another.¹⁰⁵ On each black and white photographic collage two separate forms are assembled in an abstract manner. The first is composed of an off-white ground with grey or beige triangular shapes and rectangles superimposed on it. Running horizontally across this are strips, a small thin triangle and a large triangle in speckled dark black and off white. The second consists of two different ground colours; a white/cream ground on the left and a speckled black and beige on the right. Superimposed on them is a half circle with five spokes (resembling a hand) joining together and extending outwards. The second form in speckled black and cream is surrounded by a large thick black border and has an acute rectangle in cream in the centre. Stylistically these collages are similar to other gouaches and collages which she produced during this period.¹⁰⁶ They are pure abstraction.

Gray had studied sculpture in both London and Paris and in her archive sketches for sculptural pieces and a number of sculptural heads remain. However, it is difficult to place Gray into the canon of twentieth- century sculpture because so few known examples of her work survive. At the end of 1903 or the beginning of 1904 Gray wrote to Auguste Rodin. From the letters that remain she visited the renowned sculptor at Meudon, greatly appreciative of the time they spent together, and subsequently she purchased a small bronze of La Danaïde.¹⁰⁷ Gray’s friend Kathleen Bruce went on to study with Rodin and became a successful sculptor in her own right. Rodin sparked the flame of modern sculpture, and students flocked to his studio to meet or study under his tutelage. His work was drenched in pools of light and shadow, and he openly undermined the classical movement by allowing his figures to intrude into the viewer’s real space.

The emergence of modern sculpture between 1906 and 1913 took place almost entirely in Paris. From 1913 other movements and forces began to emerge against the hegemony of Paris. Gray’s work focuses on three movements which influenced her – Cubism, Futurism and the Russian avant-garde – and the work of a number of sculptors, whom she knew, inspired her developments.

From 1906-1916 in the world of sculpture the human form was liberated and a new vocabulary began to be created. There was a block-like archetype, and every sculpture was a solid mass that was modelled, constructed or created. Space penetrated sculpture, and hollow space was treated with equal validity. New subject matter such as still lifes appeared and new media such as metal, glass, plaster, cardboard and wire were all being used. From the moment Gray had arrived in Paris she was exposed to the debates over French colonial policy in Africa that took place in 1905-6 and the resulting outcry of anticolonial opposition from socialists and anarchists at that time. Two representations of African art appeared in modernist culture of the time. The first came from French West Africa with stories appearing in the press of sacrifice, witchcraft, animism and fetishism which created a mystical, almost romanticised, view of native African culture. The second came from the French and Belgian Congos with the destruction of tribal life through white colonists. Since the end of the nineteenth century pre-historic, African and Oceanic art were being explored as new sources for sculpture. Gray’s sculpture developed directly from these sources and a key aspect of Gray’s sculpture was the discovery of tribal art. Artists began addressing anew the aesthetic qualities of the ethnographic collections in the museums of London, Paris, Dresden and Berlin. The rhythmic proportions of African wooden sculptures standing firmly on legs, set parallel and slightly bent at the knee, offered an alternative to classical contraposto.

Gray was also primarily inspired by a number of Cubist sculptors, notably Ossip Zadkine (1890-1967), Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920), Chana Orloff (1888-1968), Joseph Csáky (1888-1971) and Jacques Lipchitz (1891-1973). She also had a number of publications directly relating to their work notably ‘Lipchitz’ by Maurice Raynal, in Art d’Aujourd’hui, 1920 and an exhibition catalogue of Ossip Zadkine by André de Ridder from the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels in January 1933.¹⁰⁸

Originally from Smolensk, Zadkine had come to Paris in 1909 after firstly studying at the London Polytechnic School of Arts and Crafts. Gray was introduced to Zadkine by Chana Orloff, another Russian, who later exhibited in Jean Désert. By nature he was not an Analytical Cubist but more a sculptor of elementary forms. He has been described as the ‘only genuine wood sculptor’ of the Classical Modernist period.¹⁰⁹ From early in his career Zadkine’s approach was to animate and dominate his material, be it wood, stone or marble. During his ‘African’ phase the critic André de Ridder stated that it was as though Zadkine went directly into the forest and sculpted straight from a tree trunk. From this period his work evolved, rejecting popular, African and primitive art, and after a trip to Greece his work entered a long Cubist phase. Zadkine modelled his Cubist figures with short legs, long torsos and large heads according to African proportions. Though his work became monumental in size they maintained a simple and passionate sensibility, whilst demonstrating supple movement and harmony.¹¹⁰ Gesture was just as important as sentiment and movement.¹¹¹ Zadkine emphasised the importance of light by manipulating his forms through the use of concave and convex lines, a regime of high and low reliefs, and through the many hollows and bumps that play with light and shade. Ridder writes that it is ‘the simultaneous disassociation of form and light which leads to a piece’s emancipation’.¹¹² By the 1920s he moved from Cubist expressions to a more curvilinear, organic art, yet borrowed the Cubist freedom of combining viewpoints and off-setting convex forms with concave. During the 1930s his work entered an agile, Baroque phase where his sculptures were monumental in size.

Gray liked Zadkine’s work; however their rapport was distant and somewhat tentative, as Zadkine never mentions Gray in his autobiography, or the fact that he exhibited extensively at Gray’s gallery Jean Désert. His work frequently appears in the photographs of the furniture installations which Gray took at Jean Désert. She owned a still-life photograph taken by photographer Marc Vaux (1895-1971) in 1922 of one of Zadkine’s sculptural heads.¹¹³ In 1926 Gray also purchased a sculptural head with rouge painted lips for her collection. This head was lent to an exhibition in Brussels in 1933, and Zadkine sent Gray a catalogue with the inscription ‘To Miss E. Gray in remembrance, Jan 1933’, but he never signed it.¹¹⁴ Gray recommended Ossip Zadkine’s work to Albert Boeken (1891-1951), De Stijl writer and critic, when he came to visit her in Paris. During World War II Zadkine departed for America where he taught in New York, but returned to Paris in 1945. They remained in contact and he came and visited her in her house in the South of France. He died in 1967.

Gray also knew Amedeo Modigliani through Orloff. The Italian painter and sculptor, moved to Paris in 1906 where he attended the Académie Julian. After receiving critical acclaim early in his career, his dissolute lifestyle and consumption of alcohol and drugs took their toll on his health. What appealed to Modigliani in relation to African sculpture was its stylisation and sophistication. The Heads, made from limestone, which he created in 1909-1914, were directly inspired by African tribal masks with their extreme elongation, smooth roundness, graphic scoring, narrow bridged noses and isolated mouths. The masks are expressionless, reduced to symmetrical axiality, and strengthened by a vertical rhythm.

Chana Orloff and Gray had many friends in common. Orloff, born in the Ukraine, came to Paris via Palestine in 1910, intending to train as a dressmaker, but by 1913 was producing prints and sculpture and was exhibiting at the Salon d’Automne. She designed the letterhead for the notepaper for Gray’s gallery Jean Désert. In the 1920s, widowed and with a young son, she enjoyed immense critical success. She sculpted portraits of architects Pierre Chareau (1883-1950) and Le Corbusier’s (1887-1965) teacher Auguste Perret (1874-1954), who designed Orloff’s studio, and painters Amedeo Modigliani and Pablo Picasso. Her work was imbued with a quiet grace and sensuality. Her early works retain their solid core, yet geometric angles and hollows begin to break the surface. Her elongated figures with their length distortion served to consolidate and heighten emotional expression.

Hungarian Joseph Csáky developed and perfected a streamlined Synthetic Cubism in his sculpture. Csáky’s figures contained rhythmic movements, combined in harmonic, organic, angular forms. The work of Jacques Lipchitz who came from Lithuania completely identifies with Cubism and his unruly figures have a taut angularity in their structure. Lipchitz interwove rhizomatic forms into the figures which drew the surrounding space into the figures themselves. With developments into a more planar, flatly composed Cubist sculpture developing from 1917, his style inherently changed. By 1925 Lipchitz turned away from Cubism, seeking more organic forms filled with concentrated energy. During and after the war Lipchitz’s style was affected by the Jewish persecution. However, unlike the other sculptors who influenced Gray, he revisited Cubism for a second time in his career, where he explored the flow of space into volume.

3.31 Drawing of an abstract sculpture, 1920s, paper, pencil © NMI

Gray did a series of three sketches for an abstract sculpture. Each drawing consists of these abstract Cubic block forms and each is a play on form and space. She has noted that it was to be made from metal wire and wood blocks.¹¹⁵ She never realised the sculpture. The sketches recall the work of Alexander Archipenko (1887-1964) who arrived in Paris in 1908. From 1910 he developed his own style of simple, stereometrical, physical volumes in sculpture by creating upwardly spiralling figures. These were created through wedges, acute angles and breaks between form and space. Gray in her drawings addresses the same themes as Archipenko, Lipchitz, Csáky, Orloff and Zadkine, looking at the interaction between volume and space, creating juxtaposition between the two while still producing expressive, lyrical and dynamic forms. It is unknown if Gray ever realised sculptures from these drawings, but they confirm Gray’s interest in the rhythmic energies of volumetric masses and in expressive plastic art.

3.32 Sculptural head, 1920s, lava rock © NMI

3.33 Sculptural head, 1920s, cork © NMI

Of the three sculptural heads which remain from Gray’s oeuvre, two are made from cork and one from volcanic rock. Tête, circa 1929 is a facial sculpture made from a piece of volcanic rock which she found at Roquebrune on the seafront, on which Gray delicately marked the demarcations of facial features. Her choice of material gives the piece a very natural, organic feel.¹¹⁶ The two sculptural heads or masks are made from cork and directly relate to tribal art. Tête, 1920s is primitive, reflecting Gray’s interest, along with Modigliani, in African tribal masks from the West African Baule and Guro tribes and Picasso’s interest in Iberian sculpture. Eileen Gray created this tribal-like mask when she was in the South of France.¹¹⁷ It also coincides with the numerous African influences which were appearing in her lacquer work, especially in several furniture commissions completed for Jacques Doucet and Mme Mathieu-Lévy and in her carpet designs. The other sculptural head Gray made during the 1940s was a large sculptural mask of African style, again in the mode of Modigliani, made from cork.¹¹⁸ She used rubber washers for the eyes and tinted metallic paper to create other facial features. She originally painted it silver and then tinted it grey all over.

3.34 Sculptural head, 1940s, cork, paper, rubber © NMI

Throughout her life Gray never stopped producing artwork. She knew so many artists during her lifetime, but her debilitating shyness thwarted many opportunities to expand on these friendships, attend social occasions or make new acquaintances. In the later years of her life she had regrets, saying that she wished to have known better the artists Picasso, Léger, Miró, Rouault and Modigliani.¹¹⁹ Her letters reveal associations with some painters which until now were unknown. Gray met prominent Mexican painters Diego Rivera (1886-1957) and his wife Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) in the spring of 1934 when she travelled to Mexico by boat with Jean Badovici. She had visited Acapulco and Oaxaca and while in Mexico City she had lunch with Rivera and Kahlo. Rivera arrived in Europe in 1907, firstly to study in Madrid, and from there went to Paris to live and work in Montparnasse, where he remained until 1920. He became very good friends with Amedeo Modigliani and Chana Orloff. Despite such introductions Gray was left unimpressed with both his work and the work of José Clemente Orozco (1883-1949).¹²⁰

Gray remained acutely aware of the changes occurring in the contemporary art movements of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. However, she had grave concerns.

No one seems to have any imagination, the current has deviated to science, computers, (ordinateurs) and the new generation are wildly realistic though they have never thought of grappling with the most obvious problems. It is obvious that, as the wheel turns now so quickly, all institutions need profound reforms in their structure and the old birds are always reluctant when it comes to any change.¹²¹

With the decline in easel painting, with an increase in the use of acrylic instead of oil paint, and the introduction of abstract painting where there was deliberately no meaning to what one painted, Gray felt that contemporary art had lost its identity.¹²² To her it was stagnant, in comparison to the socially and politically motivated avant-garde art movements at the turn of the century. Minimalist and Post-painterly Abstract art just simply hypnotised its audience ‘like in the story of the Emperor’s new clothes’.¹²³ Critical of the extravagance of new American art – notably Pop and Op Art – Gray wrote, ‘Painting seems to be going through a bad patch... Pop Art and now Pop-optics are the latest thing in England, but here the critics who were never capable of understanding abstract art have tried their best to kill it and now painters are totally divided, some going on with more or less the same things and others attempting what they think is a new figuration but without sincerity; the result is frankly mediocre’.¹²⁴ She questioned if art could recover from the Pop and Geo-Pop movements.¹²⁵ In Gray’s opinion Pop Art figurative painting was pretentious as she described it full of ‘pompiérisme’.¹²⁶

Gray was interested in the work of a number of contemporary artists; Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985),¹²⁷ Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975),¹²⁸ Francis Bacon (1909-1992), Bernard Buffet (1928-1999)¹²⁹ and Frank Stella (b. 1936). However, she criticised Stella’s infamous painting Hyena Stomp, 1962 and the Irregular Polygon series.¹³⁰ Stella had produced the Irregular Polygon series in 1965-66 where he painted eleven compositions combining varying numbers of shapes to create irregular outlines. He made four versions of each composition, varying the colour combinations of each. Hyena Stomp came from a musical tune by the American jazz musician Jelly Roll Morton. Gray didn’t understand the work, not realising that Stella was thinking about syncopation while working on the painting. She was both critical and complimentary of fellow Irish artist Francis Bacon when she viewed an exhibition of his work at the Galerie Maeght in 1966. Gray wrote, ‘Enormous canvases, very thin; light paint, every sort of colour, the kind of realism that one finds in the Bandes Dessinées (cartoons) in Weekly Revues’. However, she then proceeds to describe his style as ‘Anecdotal .... No shadows but perspective, and in every painting (if one could call it painting) the faces of the humans were distorted like wicked gnomes or demons... The colours so horrid as if they were imitating comic cuts. This is surely the end of civilization’.¹³¹

Gray’s work as a designer and architect was criticised throughout her life in various publications and by various critics. Though she was freely able to criticise the work of artists in her later years, when it came to someone’s review of her own work, who was of her generation, Gray became fearful. Thoughts of ineptitude as an artist persuaded Gray to destroy so many of her early artworks. In the 1960s she wrote to Stephen Haweis, her contemporary from art school, about the incredible body of work she was producing. Her fears returned. She was devoting this time to abstract or semi abstract works and was worried that he, her contemporary, would not like them’.¹³²

Gray also criticised art exhibitions or at least the public’s reaction to the work of her contemporaries from the turn of the century. At times she is exceedingly protective of her generation’s work. It is in moments such as this that she reveals an encyclopaedic knowledge of these artists; their work, their ideologies and the artistic movements from where they came. For example, Gray attended the exhibition Les sources du XXe siècle: les arts en Europe de 1884 à 1914, which took place at the Musée Nationale d’Art Moderne from 1960-1961. Works by an impressive array of artists were on display; Paul Cézanne, Fernand Léger, Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, artists from the Expressionist German school, and a selection from the Futurist movement. Gray was critical of the selection, stating that the work of neither Eugène Carrière nor James McNeill Whistler was represented and only a tiny work by Alexander Archipenko was in the exhibition.¹³³ In another instance, Gray, who knew Alberto Giacometti from his Surrealist years, attended an exhibition of his sculpture in May 1961 at Galerie Maeght in Paris. She had gone to view the work which had become his characteristic style – very tall and thin figures. Giacometti had become, by this time, the outstanding sculptor of the era, questioning merging ideas of distance and proximity in frontal, rigid sculpture. Like Gray, he constantly self-questioned his work and the reaction to it. For this reason Gray became highly frustrated. While at the exhibition, a wealthy industrialist approached her and said of Giacometti’s work ‘you know in my factory, we too, we have a lot of iron or scrap, but it serves an entirely different purpose’.¹³⁴

Despite her criticism of artists or their ideas, Gray always believed in the importance of the artist and especially a respect for the resulting work. At times her view of the status of an artist in society was completely idealistic. To her an artist was precious. She went even so far as to state that artists shouldn’t drive, as too much attention to the task at hand prevented artistic thinking or ‘wandering’ and because driving put constant tension on their eyes.¹³⁵ In the years that followed in the role of architect Gray wrote a series of notes on urbanism, and emphasised the necessity of creating a town with special sections for artists, musicians and writers and for all those ‘who want to live with pure spiritual matters’.¹³⁶ Whether architect, designer or artist the fruition of their efforts was what was important, as for her, they were only the means through which paintings, buildings or furniture were created.

Towards the end of her life she described painting as a whole time job and a constant preoccupation.¹³⁷ In 1962 she was actively producing monotypes, collages, bas-reliefs and gouaches. Art played an important role throughout Eileen Gray’s life. Her letters reveal that she continued to paint until the year of her death. Painting made her feel alive and she wrote ‘It still seems wonderful to be alive, to open one’s eyes and be able to work at all, even if it comes to nothing’.¹³⁸

ENDNOTES

1NMIEG 2000.115, drawing of a nude study.

2Pitiot, Cloe, ‘Eileen Gray, la poésie de l’énigme’, Eileen Gray, Editions de Centre Pompidou Paris, 2013, p.16.

3NMIEG 2003.509, NMIEG 2003.510, notes on Eileen Gray’s work.

4Pater, Walter, The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry, London and New York, MacMillan and Co., 1888.

5McNeill Whistler, James, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, New York, Frederick Stokes and Brother, 1890.

6McNeill Whistler, James, Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket, 1875, oil on panel, 60.2 x 46.7 cm, Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts.

7NMIEG 2003.126, black, cream and grey gouache with vertical motifs.

8Pennell, Joseph and Elizabeth, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, London, William Heinemann, 1911.

9McNeill Whistler, James, Harmony in Blue and gold: The Peacock Room, 1876-1877, oil paint and gold leaf on canvas, leather and wood, Washington, Freer Sackler: The Smithsonian’s Museums of Asian Art.

10NMIEG 2003.94, green Japanese-style carpet gouache.

11NMIEG 2003.365, letter from Eileen Gray to Prunella Clough, 2 January 1971.

12Lane, John, The Early Work of Aubrey Beardsley, London, The Bodley Head, 1899.

13Adam, Marcelle, Les Caricatures de Puvis de Chavannes, Paris, Librairie Charles Delagrave, 1906. Verhaeren, Emile, James Ensor, Brussels, Librairie Nationale d’Art et d’Histoire, G. Van Oest& Cie, 1908.

14V&A Prints and Drawings Archive, ref nos: E119-1983, E1132-1983.

15Constant, Caroline, Eileen Gray, London, Phaidon, 2000, p.18

16Ibid, Constant, p.19. Constant puts forward the theory that Gray’s architecture was inspired by the Ballet Russes; the way in which Bakst’s costumes liberated the movement of the body in motion inspired Gray’s interest in liberating the body in its occupation of space. She also states that Baskt’s concentration on the expressive potential of the entire group of dancers caused Gray to eliminate the distinction between architecture and furnishings, merging them into an organic whole. Finally she states that Nijinsky’s performances, merging masculine and feminine traits, were reflected in the way in which Gray fused furniture and architecture together. Constant suggests that the concept for the Ballet could have been instigated by Jacques Rouche’s Carnaval des Animaux at the Théâtre des Arts 1911.

17Born 1892, one of eight children, she changed her name to Marisa Damia after being discovered by Jacques Doherty. By 1912 she was famous and her records sold in thousands.

18Adam, Peter, Eileen Gray:Architect/Designer: A Biography, London, Thames and Hudson, 2000, pp. 108-9. Adam states that Rolf de Mare for the Ballet Suédois commissioned artists such as Francis Picabia, Fernand Léger and Pierre Bonnard to design for him; the Comte de Beaumont rented the Théâtre de Pigalle and commissioned a series of ballets designed by George Braque, Picasso and André Derain.

19Cocteau, Jean, Dessins, Paris, Delamain, Boutelleau et Cie, 1923.

20NMIEG 2003.337, letter from Eileen Gray to Prunella Clough, 1970s.

21NMIEG 2003.80, Méral, Paul, Le Dit des Jeux du Monde, Paris, Presse de l’Imprimerie Studium, 1918.

22NMIEG 2000.120 – NMIEG 2000.131, NMIEG 2003.530, drawings for Ballet des Animaux

23Ibid.

24Ibid, Adam, p.109.

25Georges-Michel, Michel and George, Waldemar, Les Ballets Russes de Serge de Diaghilew, Décors et costumes, Paris, Galerie Billiet, 1930.

26V&A Archives, AAD/1980/9, un-numbered ground floor plan.

27NMIEG 2000.132, drawing for a mural for a nursery.

28V&A Archives, AAD/1980/9, un-numbered drawing for a fresco for a child’s bedroom.

29Adam, Peter, Eileen Gray: Architect/Designer: A Biography, London, Thames & Hudson, 1987, p.330, see illustration.

30NMIEG 2000.133 - 2000.136, drawings for a mural in a daycare centre.

31Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University in the City of New York, Stephen Haweis Papers, Arranged Miscellaneous Memoirs, Box 2, letter from Eileen Gray to Stephen Haweis, 14 February 1963.

32Picasso, Pablo, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907, oil on canvas, 243.7 x 233.7 cm, New York, MoMA.

33NMIEG 2003.66, Apollinaire, Guillaume, Les Peintres Cubistes, Editions Eugène Figuière et Cie, Paris, 1913.

34NMIEG 2003.150, abstract drawing.

35NMIEG 2000.173, Tempe à Pailla collage.

36Adam, Peter, Eileen Gray: Architect/Designer: A Biography, London, Thames and Hudson, 1987, p.188.

37NMIEG 2000.176, newspaper collage.

38Gray’s carpet designs were abstract in design but the inclusion of lettering, maps and plans usually referred to a person, place or memory.

39Clapp, Susannah, With Chatwin: Portrait of a Writer, New York, 1997, p.24.

40NMIEG 2000.172, Roquebrune coastline collage.

41Polo, Roberto, Eileen Gray-Œuvres sur Papier, Paris, Galerie Historismus, 2007, p.67.

42NMIEG 2003.122, black, grey and beige gouache with architectural plan motif. NMIEG 2003.118, black and white speckled gouache and collage.

43NMIEG 2000.173, Tempe à Pailla collage. Dating from 1931-34, this collage shows Gray’s experimentation with Synthetic Cubism.

44NMIEG 2000.90, Tempe à Pailla site plan.

45NMIEG 2000.174, green, white, blue gouache and collage.

46NMIEG 2000.169, collage elements.

47NMIEG 2003.118, black and white speckled gouache and collage.

48NMIEG 2000.169, NMIEG 2003.1569, Cultural and Social Centre, Stage design for Épopée Irlandaise.

49Polo, Roberto, Eileen Gray-Œuvres sur Papier, Paris, Galerie Historismus, 2007, p.72.

50NMIEG 2000.177, black and white collage. NMIEG 2003.123, black, grey and white gouache with yellow motif. Polo, Roberto, Eileen Gray-Œuvres sur Papier, Paris, Galerie Historismus, 2007, p.77.

51NMIEG 2003.145, black with green circle gouache and collage.

52NMIEG 2003.129, black gouache with dark green and speckled motifs. NMIEG 2003.123, black, grey and white gouache with yellow motif.

53Einstein, Carl, ‘Notes sur le cubism’, Documents, No.3, Paris, 39 rue de la Boétie, June 1929, pp.146-155.

54Braque, Georges, Le Sacré Coeur, 1913, oil on canvas, 55 x 40.5cm, Lille, Lille Métropole Musée d’art moderne.

55NMIEG 2003.82, Picasso, Pablo, Guernica, London, New Burlington Galleries, October 1938.

56NMIEG 2003.65, Gleizes, Albert, and Metzinger, Jean, Du Cubisme, Paris, Editions la Cible, 1912.

57NMIEG 2000.74, lacquer panel for a door.

58NMIEG 2003.150, abstract drawing. The motifs reappear in Marine d’Abord, Ebony and Ivory, Feston, Black Magic and Collage carpet designs.

59NMIEG 2000.74,lacquer door panel.

60Apollinaire, Guillaume, Les Soirées de Paris, No.22, Paris, Editions 6 rue Jacob, 15 March 1914.

61Picabia, Francis, Danseuse étoile sur un transatlantique, 1913, watercolour on paper, 75x55 cm, private collection.

62NMIEG 2003.148, charcoal drawing.

63V&A Archives, AAD 9/6-1980 and AAD 9/9-1980. These are typed notes by Jean Badovici regarding naval design, life boats and lifesaving.

64NMIEG 2003.85, Futurist exhibition catalogue, London, Sackville Gallery, March 1912.

65NMIEG 2003.147, charcoal drawing on grid paper.

66Lewis, Percy Wyndham, Blast, issue 1 and 2, London, Bodley Head, 1914.

67NMIEG 2003.124, black, grey and beige speckled gouache with swirling lines.

68NMIEG 2003.121, black and white speckled gouache with white lightening motif.

69NMIEG 2003.125, yellow gouache with white motifs and black lines, early 1930s.

70Duchamp, Marcel, Nude Descending a Staircase, No.2, 1912, oil on canvas, 147.5x89cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Louise and Walter Arensberg collection.

71Polo, Roberto, Eileen Gray-Œuvres sur Papier, Paris, Galerie Historismus, 2007, p.73.

72NMIEG 2003.132, black gouache with thin white lines, 1918-1921.

73Malevich, Kazimir, Suprematist Composition, 1915, oil on canvas, 49x44cm, Lugwigshafen, Wilhelm-Hack Museum.

74Kliun, Ivan, Suprematism, 1915-16, oil on canvas, 89x70.7cm, Moscow, Tretyakov Gallery.

75NMIEG 2003.93, navy blue square with white stripe gouache, 1918-1921.

76NMIEG 2003.130, black and speckled square gouache,early 1930s.

77NMIEG 2003.119, black with white circle gouache and collage, early 1930s. Polo, Roberto, Eileen Gray-Œuvres sur Papier, Paris, Galerie Historismus, 2007, p.71.

78NMIEG 2000.261, Van Doesburg, Theo, Classique Baroque Moderne, Paris Edition De Sikkel Anvers et Leonce Rosenberg, December 1918.

79NMIEG 2003.81, Mondrian, Piet, Neo Plasticisme, Paris, Editions de l’Effort Moderne Léonce Rosenberg, 1920.

80NMIEG 2003.128, brown and beige gouache, 1923-1925.

81NMIEG 2003.143, red and pink gouache, 1923-25.

82NMIEG 2003.128, brown and beige gouache.

83NMIEG 2003.128, brown and beige gouache, 1923-1925. NMIEG 2003.130, black and speckled square gouache, early 1930s. NMIEG 2003.119, black with white circle gouache and collage. NMIEG 2003.120, blackand speckled white gouache. NMIEG 2003.124, black, grey and beige speckled gouache with swirling lines. circa 1930s. NMIEG 2003.129, black gouache with dark green and speckled motifs. NMIEG 2003.122, black, grey and beige gouache with architectural plan motif. NMIEG 2003.123, black, grey, and white gouache with yellow motif. Polo, Roberto, Eileen Gray- Œuvres sur Papier, Paris, Galerie Historismus, 2007, pp.55, 71, 85.

84NMIEG 2003.129, black gouache with dark green and speckled motifs.

85NMIEG 2003.141, beige and black speckled gouache.NMIEG 2003.118, black and white speckled gouache and collage, circa 1946. NMIEG 2003.149, black, grey and beige speckled gouache, 1939-1949. NMIEG 2003.144, purple, black, grey and white speckled gouache, 1930-1935. Polo, Roberto, Eileen Gray-Œuvres sur Papier, Paris, Galerie Historismus, 2007, p.93.

86NMIEG 2003.144, purple, black, grey and white speckled gouache. 1930-1935.

87NMIEG 2003.127, speckled blue gouache with blue abstract motifs, late 1930s.

88Polo, Roberto, Eileen Gray-Œuvres sur Papier, Paris, Galerie Historismus, 2007, pp. 93, 95, 97, 99, 103.

89NMIEG 2003.116, fish-design gouache.

90NMIEG 2000.251 and NMIEG 2000.252, Vogue magazine and article.

91RIBA Archives, PB546/1, miscellaneous loose designs for carpets and tiles.

92NMIEG 2000.174, green, white, blue gouache and collage.

93Polo, Roberto, Eileen Gray-Œuvres sur Papier, Paris, Galerie Historismus, 2007, p.68.

94NMIEG 2003.142, Hantage gouache.

95NMIEG 2000.175, orange and brown collage.

96Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University in the City of New York, Stephen Haweis Papers, Arranged Miscellaneous Memoirs, Box 2, letter from Eileen Gray to Stephen Haweis, Thursday 13 February 1964.

97NMIEG 2000.178, Chillida collage, 1950s.

98Gray’s business partner and friend Evelyn Wyld was friendly with Elizabeth de Lanux, who was a journalist and wife of Pierre de Lanux, later becoming professionally and romantically involved with her. They were friends of Jean Cocteau, André Gide, Man Ray and Breton and Aragon. They were also friends of Élisabeth de Grammont, Duchess de Clarement Tonerre, who had written the first French article in Les Feuillets d’Art on Eileen Gray.

99Various authors, No. 63 Visage du Monde, Paris, Editions Fernand Sorlot, 15May 1939.

100Duchamp, Marcel, Le Surréalisme en 1947, Paris, Galerie Maeght, 1947.

101Badovici, Jean, and Gray, Eileen, ‘Maison au Bord de Mer’, L’Architecture Vivante, Paris, Editions Albert Morancé, Winter 1929. NMIEG 2000.250 and NMIEG 2003.1641, portfolios.

102Various authors, edited by Breton, André, Le Surréalisme au Service de la Révolution, issues no.3 and 4, Paris, Librairie José Corti, 1931.

103Moholy-Nagy, László, ‘Malerei, Fotografie, Film‘, Bauhausbücher, Volume 8, 1925.

104NMIEG 2000.171, photographic collage, circa 1935.

105NMIEG 2003.133, black and white photographic collage, 1960s. NMIEG 2003.146, black and white photographic collage, 1960s.

106Polo, Roberto, Eileen Gray-Œuvres sur Papier, Paris, Galerie Historismus, 2007, p.107.

107Musée Rodin Archives, three letters from Eileen Gray to Auguste Rodin, December 1902, January 1902 and 20 January 1902.

108Raynal, Maurice, ‘Lipchitz’, Art d’Aujourd’hui, No.1, Paris, Action, 1920. NMIEG 2003.63, de Ridder, André, Zadkine, Brussels, H. Wellens, W. Godenne rue de Roumanie Editions, 1933.

109Ruhrberg, Schneckenburger, Fricke, Honnef, Art of the Twentieth Century, Taschen 2000, p.142.

110Ibid, de Ridder, p.6.

111Ibid, de Ridder, p.7.

112Ibid, de Ridder, p.8.

113NMIEG 2003.546.

114de Ridder, André, Zadkine, Brussels, Palais des Beaux Arts, H. Wellens, W. Godenne rue de Roumanie Editions, January 1933. In the catalogue, written in French, Gray’s head is No.61 titled ‘Head-stone incrusted marble’ dated 1926, belonging to Mlle Gray, Paris.

115NMIEG 2003.528, drawing of an abstract sculpture.

116NMIEG 2003.535, sculptural head, 1920s.

117NMIEG 2003.534, sculptural head, 1920s.

118NMIEG 2000.116, sculptural head, 1940s.

119Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University in the City of New York, Stephen Haweis Papers, Arranged Miscellaneous Memoirs, Box 2, letter from Eileen Gray to Stephen Haweis, 14 February 1963.

120Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University in the City of New York, Stephen Haweis Papers, Arranged Miscellaneous Memoirs, Box 2, letter from Eileen Gray to Stephen Haweis, 30March 1962.

121Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University in the City of New York, Stephen Haweis Papers, Arranged Miscellaneous Memoirs, Box 2, letter from Eileen Gray to Stephen Haweis, 16 May 1968.

122NMIEG 2003.365, letter from Eileen Gray to Prunella Clough, 2 January 1971. Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University in the City of New York, Stephen Haweis Papers, Arranged Miscellaneous Memoirs, Box 2, letter from Eileen Gray to Stephen Haweis, February 1968.

123NMIEG 2003.334, letter from Eileen Gray to Prunella Clough, Wednesday, date and year unknown.

124Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University in the City of New York, Stephen Haweis Papers, Arranged Miscellaneous Memoirs, Box 2, letter from Eileen Gray to Stephen Haweis, 8 March (year unknown possibly 1964).

125Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University in the City of New York, Stephen Haweis Papers, Arranged Miscellaneous Memoirs, Box 2, letter from Eileen Gray to Stephen Haweis, 16 May 1968.

126Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University in the City of New York, Stephen Haweis Papers, Arranged Miscellaneous Memoirs, Box 2, letter from Eileen Gray to Stephen Haweis, Easter Monday, year unknown.

127NMIEG 2000.189, postcard from Eileen Gray to Prunella Clough.

128NMIEG: 2003.332, letter from Eileen Gray to Prunella Clough, date and year unknown.

129NMIEG 2003.337, letter from Eileen Gray to Prunella Clough, 1960. Bernard Buffett (1928-1999) was a French expressionist and member of the Anti-Abstract Group L’homme Témoin (the Witness Man). Gray also mentions Annabel Schwob (1928-2005) – Dubuffet’s wife, who was an actress, in this letter.

130Stella, Frank, Hyena Stomp, 1962, Alkyd paint on canvas, 77x77cm, London, Tate Gallery.

131NMIEG 2003.311, letter from Eileen Gray to Prunella Clough, 9 January, year unknown.

132Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University in the City of New York, Stephen Haweis Papers, Arranged Miscellaneous Memoirs, Box 2, letter from Eileen Gray to Stephen Haweis, 12 October, year unknown, possibly 1966.

133Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University in the City of New York, Stephen Haweis Papers, Arranged Miscellaneous Memoirs, Box 2, letter from Eileen Gray to Stephen Haweis, 27 November 1961.

134Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University in the City of New York, Stephen Haweis Papers, Arranged Miscellaneous Memoirs, Box 2, letter from Eileen Gray to Stephen Haweis, 27 November 1961.

135NMIEG 2003.340, letter from Eileen Gray to Prunella Clough, Monday, late 1960s.

136Ibid, Adam, p.138.

137Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University in the City of New York, Stephen Haweis Papers, Arranged Miscellaneous Memoirs, Box 2, letter from Eileen Gray to Stephen Haweis, 30 March 1962, letter from Eileen Gray to Stephen Haweis, page two part of a letter April 1962 – possibly page two of letter 30 March 1962.

138Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University in the City of New York, Stephen Haweis Papers, Arranged Miscellaneous Memoirs, Box 2, letter from Eileen Gray to Stephen Haweis, 27 November 1961.