Eileen Gray. Jennifer Goff

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