Eileen Gray was born on 9 August 1878, into an aristocratic family near Enniscorthy, a small market town in south-eastern Ireland. In 1923, she designed the Bedroom-Boudoir for the Monte-Carlo, at the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs, a design show, but the reviews were mixed. However, she contributed to the design of the Salon d'Automne and that was praised by Le Corbusier and by the architect Robert Mallet-Stevens.
Around this time, she focused on architecture and furniture design. She designed several houses and an apartment for and in collaboration with her lover, the Romanian architect Jean Badovici, as well as the furniture and fittings. Badovici devoted a special issue of his periodical "L'Architecture Vivante" to the house E.1027 that she designed for and with him in Rocquebrune-Cap Martin (1926-29). An architecture critic said “Eileen Gray occupies the centre of the modern movement”; she was slowly starting to become recognised as an established designer and architect.
Shortly before her death, Gray’s work was shown in an exhibition in London and her work was remembered fondly by the public. At the age of ninety-eight, Kathleen Eileen Moray Gray died in her apartment on rue Bonaparte in Paris. Throughout her career she had been independent and did not often work alongside others. She was quite unusual in her life as there were very few female designers around. It was not until after her death that her work was truly appreciated.
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