Eileen Gray - Biography

Biography

Eileen Gray was born on 9 August 1878 into an aristocratic family near Enniscorthy, a market town in south-eastern Ireland. Gray was the youngest of five children. Her parents, Eveleen Pounden Gray and James Maclaren Gray, were of Scottish descent. Gray’s father, James, was a painter who encouraged his daughter's artistic interests. He took his daughter on painting tours of Italy and Switzerland which encouraged her independent spirit. Gray spent most of her childhood living in the family's homes in Ireland or South Kensington in London.

In 1898, Gray attended classes at the Slade School of Fine Art, where she studied painting. While there, she met Jessie Gavin and Kathleen Bruce. In 1900 her father died and she went on her first visit to Paris with her mother where she saw the Exposition Universelle, a world's fair that celebrated the achievements of the past century. The main style at the fair was Art Nouveau and Gray was a fan of the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh which was on exhibit. Soon after, Gray moved to Paris along with her friends Gavin and Bruce from the Slade School. She continued her studies in Paris at the Académie Julian and the Académie Colarossi. For four or five years after the move, Gray travelled back and forth from Paris to Ireland to London, but in 1905, due to her mother's illness, she settled back in London. She rejoined the Slade but found her drawing and painting courses were becoming less satisfying.