Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Eileen Gray - the renowned and highly influential architect, furniture-maker, interior designer, and photographer - was born in Ireland and remained, throughout her life, an Irishwoman at heart. An elusive figure, Gray's interior world has never before been observed as closely as in this ground-breaking study of her work, philosophy, and inner circle of fellow artists. The book expertly blends art history and biography to create a stunning ensemble, offering a clear beacon of light into truly understanding Eileen Gray - the woman and the professional. Gray was a self-taught polymath and her work was multi-functional, user-friendly, and ready for mass production, yet succinctly unique. As one of the most influential designers of the 20th century, her designs reveal great technical virtuosity. Her expertise in lacquer work and carpet design, often overlooked, are given due attention here, as is her fascinating relationship with the architect Le Corbusier and many other compelling and complex relationships. The book also offers rare insights into Gray's early years as an artist. The primary source material for this book is drawn from the Eileen Gray collection at the National Museum of Ireland and its wealth of documentation, correspondence, personal archives, photographs, and oral history. The book is an essential tie-in with the soon-to-be-released motion picture 'The Price of Desire' by Mary McGuckian, as well as the documentary film 'Gray Matters' by Marco Orsini. *** "'Eileen Gray' is an entertaining and revealing book that should at long last paint the brilliant designer out of the margins and into the limelight where she so clearly belongs." -- Architectural Digest, January 2015 *** "This stirring biography of Eileen Gray recounts the days of her life and her creative genius that were largely overlooked by the art and architecture world for a half century. Illustrations and images tell her story as an artist, architect, and interior designer, and a photographer. The author provides a rich collage of Gray's personal relationships with Le Corbusier, Jean Badovici, and Stephen Haweiss, giving insight into influences on her work. This is an enlightening portrait of her life and the emergence of modernism... Highly recommended." - Choice, July 2015, Vol. 52, No. 11 [Subject: Art History, Architecture, Design, Biography, Irish Studies, Women's Studies]

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CHOICE Review

This stirring biography of Eileen Gray recounts the days of her life and her creative genius that were largely overlooked by the art and architecture world for a half century. Illustrations and images tell her story as an artist, architect, and interior designer, and a photographer. Excerpts from Gray's personal letters illustrate her free and independent spirit, which is seen in her carpet designs with varying design elements and spatial sequences in designed rooms from her architecture. Her unique furniture designs consider the way materials go together and emphasize an interconnection of architectural assemblage. Eileen Gray's architecture is thoroughly modern, with a preference for minimalism, simplicity, concealed storage space, and a lack of overtly decorative detail. The author provides a rich collage of Gray's personal relationships with Le Corbusier, Jean Badovici, and Stephen Haweiss, giving insight into influences on her work. Recognized as one of the rare designers of the 20th century, Eileen Gray worked into her 90s. This is an enlightening portrait of her life and the emergence of modernism with 380 color and black-and-white photographs of furniture, carpet designs, architecture, floor plans, drawings, models, portraits, and letters. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduate students and above. --S. Dorothea Scott-Fundling, Marymount University