‘Gray Matters’ screenings

Photo copyright MoJo Entertainment, LLC, 2014

The long-overdue portrait of a pioneer of Art Deco and Modernist design.

Free-spirited, fiercely independent and strides ahead of her time, Eileen Gray was a pioneer of Art Deco and Modernist design, with an artistic output spanning furniture, architecture and textiles. Her original and daring designs were game-changers, and now reside in some of the world’s most prestigious private and public art collections.

Born in Ireland in 1878, Gray was one of the first women to attend the Slade School of Fine Art, where she studied painting. After graduation she took up lacquer art, bringing her modern aesthetic to the ancient form. She began outfitting some of the most fashionable apartments in Paris and designed the Brick Screen, an innovative room divider still in production today.

By the late 1920s, her attentions shifted to the world of architecture. Gray designed numerous dwellings but her most famous was E-1027, which she designed for her partner, the architecture critic Jean Badovici. Overlooking the Mediterranean, the stark, Modernist construction garnered controversy with the unwanted addition of interior wall murals by Gray’s contemporary Le Corbusier. Ironically, Le Corbusier’s involvement in the house saved it from destruction, but the outrage of misappropriation for the design was too much for Gray, who retreated from public life.

Victoria and Albert Museum curator Christopher Wilk said: “The story of Eileen Gray is really the story of retrieval. You look at her work, and you think: How could a woman of this talent ever have been forgotten? How come decades went by when essentially nobody knew about her?”

In 1968, her astounding body of work was unearthed in Domus magazine by critic Joseph Rykwert and institutions such as the Centre Pompidou and MoMA, where numerous works are held in permanent collections. With Gray Matters, contemporary audiences can finally put the correct name to some of the most iconic works.

Marco Orsini, 72 mins, USA/Ireland, 2014. Courtesy: The Little Film Company.

Gray Matters screens from 9 to 27 October. Check out the session times below, and then click over to ACMI to book.

October screening times:
Fri 9—8.15pm
Sat 10—7pm
Sun 11—6.45pm
Mon 12—8pm
Wed 14—8pm
Thu 15—5pm and 7.30pm
Fri 16—6.30pm
Sat 17—2pm and 4pm
Sun 18—4pm and 6pm
Mon 19—6.45pm
Tue 20—5.30pm and 7.30pm
Wed 21—7pm
Thu 22—4.30pm and 6.30pm
Fri 23—5.30pm and 7.30pm
Sat 24—4.30pm and 6.30pm
Sun 25—2.30pm and 5.45pm
Mon 26—4.30pm and 8.30pm
Tue 27—4.30pm