Her Dragons armchair set a record at auction as the most expensive 20th-century furniture piece, selling for $28 million, while her iconic Villa E-1027 — her first architectural project — is one of the most visited landmarks on the French Riviera. The legacy of Irish architect and designer Eileen Grey holds strong today, resonating across the contemporary scene.
But it wasn’t always thus.
‘When my father, Zeev Aram, first made contact with Eileen Gray in the early 1970s, her designs had never been put into constant manufacturing having only ever been made as one-offs for specific interiors projects undertaken by Eileen,’ says Daniel Aram, managing director of the London furniture powerhouse Aram.
That includes Gray’s Bibendum chair, designed 100 years ago for the E-1027 villa with inspiration from the Michelin Man Bibendum and the rounded, bold forms created by cartoonist O’Gallop in 1898. The armchair marked a key moment in modernist design. Its daring curvaceous style, made from stacked cushions on a steel base, pushed the boundaries of traditional design and paved the way for a more modern, progressive manner of living.
In the 1930s it caught the eye of fashion entrepreneur Juliette Lévy, who commissioned one for her legendary art deco apartment in Paris. After that, it faded into obscurity, along with many of Gray’s catalogue.
‘Her designs were pretty much forgotten,’ says Aram.
Eileen Gray in 1927. Photography: Berenice Abbott, courtesy of Aram.
Photography: Ollie Tomlinson.
Photography: Ollie Tomlinson.
Photography: Ollie Tomlinson.
Photography: Ollie Tomlinson.
Photography: Ollie Tomlinson.
In the ’70s, he says, ‘My father and Eileen needed to effectively start prototyping her designs. My father made a prototype [of the Bibendum] using old photos and approximated dimensions of a couple of one-offs and presented it to Eileen for her opinion.’
Zeev described the moment as akin to meeting an old friend after many years. As Daniel recounts, ‘Eileen saw the chair, and a huge smile lit up her face. She gently took a seat in the chair and sat in contemplative thought, all the time smiling. She then announced that the chair needed to be two centimetres wider. For my father, this illustrated her unerring precision in matters of design.’
The Bibendum is still highly desirable, selling between 70 and 100 per year, says Aram, who keeps one in a reading room in his London home. And this year, as the chair’s exclusive manufacturer in the UK, the dealer will mark its 100th anniversary with a limited edition of 100 numbered pieces.
Produced in collaboration with ClassiCon, Eileen Gray’s sublicensee outside the UK, each piece in the collection is manufactured in Sørensen Duet nubuck gold leather upholstery against a nickel-finished steel base that echoes the chair’s original design, stamped with a unique edition number.
The stitching, issue stamp and attention to detail would have agreed with Gray. And it justifies the price. The series is currently available through Aram from £6,750.
