Gray area

When the exhibition Eileen Gray: Architect Designer Painter opens at IMMA next week, can we expect a lesson in the merits of timeless design from the Modernist era?

Previously showing at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, it promises however, something more compelling — an opportunity to see a body of work straddling furniture design, decorative arts, painting and architecture by one woman, who, when faced repeatedly with the obstacle of a male dominated art and design movement of the day, walked around it and kept going.

Bear in mind this is a woman who wore trousers when her contemporaries were struggling to get out of their stays; who produced designs marked as both masculine and feminine, developed in the world of robust work by Le Corbusier and Marcel Breuer on one hand, and the skills in lacquer work and fine art she sought out and developed to her own style.