in 1965-66 where he painted eleven compositions combining varying numbers of shapes to create irregular outlines. He made four versions of each composition, varying the colour combinations of each. Hyena Stomp came from a musical tune by the American jazz musician Jelly Roll Morton. Gray didn’t understand the work, not realising that Stella was thinking about syncopation while working on the painting. She was both critical and complimentary of fellow Irish artist Francis Bacon when she viewed an exhibition of his work at the Galerie Maeght in 1966. Gray wrote, ‘Enormous canvases, very thin; light paint, every sort of colour, the kind of realism that one finds in the Bandes Dessinées (cartoons) in Weekly Revues’. However, she then proceeds to describe his style as ‘Anecdotal .... No shadows but perspective, and in every painting (if one could call it painting) the faces of the humans were distorted like wicked gnomes or demons... The colours so horrid as if they were imitating comic cuts. This is surely the end of civilization’.131
Gray’s work as a designer and architect was criticised throughout her life in various publications and by various critics. Though she was freely able to criticise the work of artists in her later years, when it came to someone’s review of her own work, who was of her generation, Gray became fearful. Thoughts of ineptitude as an artist persuaded Gray to destroy so many of her early artworks. In the 1960s she wrote to Stephen Haweis, her contemporary from art school, about the incredible body of work she was producing. Her fears returned. She was devoting this time to abstract or semi abstract works and was worried that he, her contemporary, would not like them’.132
Gray also criticised art exhibitions or at least the public’s reaction to the work of her contemporaries from the turn of the century. At times she is exceedingly protective of her generation’s work. It is in moments such as this that she reveals an encyclopaedic knowledge of these artists; their work, their ideologies and the artistic movements from where they came. For example, Gray attended the exhibition Les sources du XXe siècle: les arts en Europe de 1884 à 1914, which took place at the Musée Nationale d’Art Moderne from 1960-1961. Works by an impressive array of artists were on display; Paul Cézanne, Fernand Léger, Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, artists from the Expressionist German school, and a selection from the Futurist movement. Gray was critical of the selection, stating that the work of neither Eugène Carrière nor James McNeill Whistler was represented and only a tiny work by Alexander Archipenko was in the exhibition.133 In another instance, Gray, who knew Alberto Giacometti from his Surrealist years, attended an exhibition of his sculpture in May 1961 at Galerie Maeght in Paris. She had gone to view the work which had become his characteristic style – very tall and thin figures. Giacometti had become, by this time, the outstanding sculptor of the era, questioning merging ideas of distance and proximity in frontal, rigid sculpture. Like Gray, he constantly self-questioned his work and the reaction to it. For this reason Gray became highly frustrated. While at the exhibition, a wealthy industrialist approached her and said of Giacometti’s work ‘you know in my factory, we too, we have a lot of iron or scrap, but it serves an entirely different purpose’.134
Despite her criticism of artists or their ideas, Gray always believed in the importance of the artist and especially a respect for the resulting work. At times her view of the status of an artist in society was completely idealistic. To her an artist was precious. She went even so far as to state that artists shouldn’t drive, as too much attention to the task at hand prevented artistic thinking or ‘wandering’ and because driving put constant tension on their eyes.135 In the years that followed in the role of architect Gray wrote a series of notes on urbanism, and emphasised the necessity of creating a town with special sections for artists, musicians and writers and for all those ‘who want to live with pure spiritual matters’.136 Whether architect, designer or artist the fruition of their efforts was what was important, as for her, they were only the means through which paintings, buildings or furniture were created.
Towards the end of her life she described painting as a whole time job and a constant preoccupation.137 In 1962 she was actively producing monotypes, collages, bas-reliefs and gouaches. Art played an important role throughout Eileen Gray’s life. Her letters reveal that she continued to paint until the year of her death. Painting made her feel alive and she wrote ‘It still seems wonderful to be alive, to open one’s eyes and be able to work at all, even if it comes to nothing’.138
ENDNOTES
1NMIEG 2000.115, drawing of a nude study.
2Pitiot, Cloe, ‘Eileen Gray, la poésie de l’énigme’, Eileen Gray, Editions de Centre Pompidou Paris, 2013, p.16.
3NMIEG 2003.509, NMIEG 2003.510, notes on Eileen Gray’s work.
4Pater, Walter, The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry, London and New York, MacMillan and Co., 1888.
5McNeill Whistler, James, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, New York, Frederick Stokes and Brother, 1890.
6McNeill Whistler, James, Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket, 1875, oil on panel, 60.2 x 46.7 cm, Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts.
7NMIEG 2003.126, black, cream and grey gouache with vertical motifs.
8Pennell, Joseph and Elizabeth, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, London, William Heinemann, 1911.
9McNeill Whistler, James, Harmony in Blue and gold: The Peacock Room, 1876-1877, oil paint and gold leaf on canvas, leather and wood, Washington, Freer Sackler: The Smithsonian’s Museums of Asian Art.
10NMIEG 2003.94, green Japanese-style carpet gouache.
11NMIEG 2003.365, letter from Eileen Gray to Prunella Clough, 2 January 1971.
12Lane, John, The Early Work of Aubrey Beardsley, London, The Bodley Head, 1899.
13Adam, Marcelle, Les Caricatures de Puvis de Chavannes, Paris, Librairie Charles Delagrave, 1906. Verhaeren, Emile, James Ensor, Brussels, Librairie Nationale d’Art et d’Histoire, G. Van Oest& Cie, 1908.
14V&A Prints and Drawings Archive, ref nos: E119-1983, E1132-1983.
15Constant, Caroline, Eileen Gray, London, Phaidon, 2000, p.18
