Daniella On Design
  • Blog
  • About
  • Design Education
  • Store

Eileen Gray's Carpets

9/27/2016

1 Comment

 
Picture
​One of the best parts in the fascinating talk by Dr. Jennifer Goff, Curator of Furniture, Silver, and the Eileen Gray Collection at the National Museum of Ireland in my class on collecting design this morning, was that devoted to the carpets that the Parisian-based Irish designer created from the teens through the 70s.

It is in her design of rugs, which Gray began creating during the crafts revival, that she came to express the major avant-garde movements in the arts, all of which came to influence her thoughts: Fauvism, De Stijl, Cubism, Italian Futurism, and Russian Constructivism, found their expression In Gray’s design for rugs. We learnt today that even after closing her shop Jean Desert in 1930, she continued to actively produce carpets and that they were produced at an atelier in Paris that she had set up with her American friend and colleague Evelyn Wyld in 1910.

​It is in the carpets that one can trace Gray’s extraordinary talent for flat patterns and graphic, as she beautifully captured her environments in the carpets, translating them into abstract patterns: the streets of Paris, the urban structure of St. Tropez, the views seen from E1027, the modernist villa in the French Riviera where she briefly lived. Horizontal and vertical bands, bold geometrical forms, and amazing combinations of colors came to define her carpets. 
Picture
Etoile de mer Carpet, c.1930; Collection of MoMA.
Picture
St. Tropez Rug
Picture
Roquebrune Rug
Picture
Castellar Rug
Picture
1 Comment
Jean Manuel de Noronha link
12/14/2020 07:09:43 am

It is always a pleasure to read about an artist when you are a fan of twenty years, but it is also disconvinient when the information provided is not correct. Gray and Wyld built up what shout be considered the first modernist weaving workshop in Europe around 1910. The first images of carpet woven from this worshop only appear after 1921. By 1923 the workshop which was under the direction of Wyld gained in independence by publishing an advertising to look for other customers. And from the archives in the National Museum of Irland it appears that the collaboration ended by 1925, when they splitter the material and looms from the Visconti workshop. By 1926 the interest for carpets by E. Gray decreased as she was completely invested in E1027. E. Wyld from 1925 to 1933 tried to maintain her workshop and was very active in promoting and looking for customers. Contrarily to E. Gray she was present more regularly in the Parisian exhibitions either directly or through partners. The press also had spotted her productions in numerous articles. Wyld also tried to find foreign customer outside of France, she exhibited in London and in the states. Wyld was among the few that accepted to exhibit in the US by the beginning 30s.
From the documents we can find it is impossible to imagine what was produced by Eileen Gray after 1926. The remaining records from the gallery Jean Desert stop in 1926 and then we only have records in connection with its closing sales in 1930. Many people mention that carpets were still woven for Eileen Gray after this period, without presenting elements of proof. What we can state by the photos of the other houses from Gray, Castellar and Temple de Pailla, is that the presence of carpets is reduced. We mainly see felts rugs and a bed cover that is now in the Moma Collection titled Etoile de mer. In the 70s Donegal carpet and apparently Cogolin have woven rugs after E Gray design. The rugs illustrated in your blog are modern reedition and they do not always respect the size and colors of the original rugs, and for certain they change the weaving aspect and technique. I would be very pleased to find documents that would contradict my point of view and globally allow to increase the knowledge about Gray and Wyld, the latter was completely forgotten by the design historians, but she was the hand who translated the Gray designs and ideas in real. Without Wyld there would not be any weaving or rug from Gray.

Yours sincerely

Jean Manuel de Noronha

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    ABOUT

    Picture
    Picture

    MY VIDEOS

    Video Series

    Collecting Design

    Conversations


    CONTACT

    daniella.ohad.nyc@gmail.com

    CATEGORIES


    NEWSLETTER


    ARCHIVES

    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016


    View Our Shop For Limited Edition Items
    SHOP

    RSS Feed

Picture
Home  |  About  |  Contact | Shop
Daniella On Design 2014-2019. All Rights Reserved.