Elieen Gray

Eileen Gray was an Irish designer and architect, as well as a pioneer of the Modern Movement in architecture. Born in Enniscorthy in 1878, she studied drawing and painting in London until she discovered her passion for lacquered furniture in a shop in Soho, which led her to move to Paris in 1907 to study with Seizo Sugawara, a Japanese master of the wood lacquering technique. Driven by her fellow architect Jean Badovici and Le Corbusier, Eileen began studying architecture in 1924: the result was her most emblematic work, Villa E-1027 in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, on the French Riviera.