Eileen Gray

The Bard Graduate Center Gallery produces multiple exhibitions and publications each year, serving as a vital center of learning and a catalyst for engagement in the interrelated disciplines of decorative arts, design, and material culture. The gallery is celebrated in the museum world for its longstanding legacy of landmark projects dedicated to significant—yet often understudied—figures and movements in the history of decorative arts and design; these exhibitions and publications typically represent the definitive intervention on the artists and objects they investigate. BGC Gallery is also committed to generating and supporting a vast range of diverse presentations, small and large, that challenge traditional approaches to object inquiry; these examinations of material culture explore the human experience as manifest in our creation and use of “things” of all kinds. Whether originating in internal research and expertise, or in collaboration with external subject specialists, these endeavors prioritize rigorous scholarship while seeking to adhere to the field’s highest standards in production and design.

Born Kathleen Eileen Moray Smith-Gray in 1878 in Ireland, the woman who came to be known simply as Eileen Gray was one of the twentieth century’s most accomplished designer-architects whose artistic practice also included painting and photography. Today she is recognized as a pioneering woman in what was the predominantly male field of modern architecture. Through this online companion to Bard Graduate Center’s Eileen Gray exhibition, explore interactive features, archival images and drawings, and new research to learn more about Gray’s life and the many different facets of her career, from celebrated projects to many lesser-known and recently rediscovered pieces. Featured in The New York Times, the site offers in-depth information about the exhibition, including a guided tour, excerpts from the exhibition catalogue, and talks from Bard Graduate Center’s symposium Eileen Gray: New Research and Methodologies. In addition, an educator’s guide and at-home activities provide opportunities for remote learning, while object stories by BGC Teen Scholars and Gallery Educators from BGC’s MA and PhD programs offer insights into selected pieces from the exhibition.

This project is an online companion to the Eileen Gray exhibition held at the Bard Graduate Center Gallery October 13–28, 2020.

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