Set Of 12 Dining Chairs Eileen Gray Roquebrune Chrome Leather Not Mart Stam Twelve Dining Chair Bauhaus. Modern Movement 1930s. Modernism

For the terrace of her second house in Castellar, Eileen Gray designed a very comfortable chair with a deep seating area. This chair was covered with blue canvas but then she created another version for interior use, with identical lines albeit finished instead in leather. And thus Roquebrune, another design classic from the 30’s, was born.

This fine set of 12 are just in from Milan and available now. Same residence since new in the late 1970s. “Eileen Gray's designs are now as familiar as designs from the other important early 20th Century architects and designers such as Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer et al”

New springs to the backs and underseats. This means the leather is as tight as a drum and therefore comfortable and durable.

No rust , no pitting.

Stiching is scuffed but as its only one layer of hide there is no impact.

No rips, no tears.

No nasties.

Structure A1

Super patina.

Truly fabulous room presence that will compliment modern and classic interiors.

About Eileen Gray

Born in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Ireland in 1878, Eileen Gray spent her childhood in London and was among the first women to be admitted to the Slade, where she took up painting in 1898 before undergoing an apprenticeship in a London lacquer workshop. The experience she gained in working in this highly specialised medium was to influence her profoundly when she moved to Paris in 1902. After further training in lacquer work and cabinet making, she quickly established herself as one of the leading designers of the lacquered screens and decorative panels so beloved by the followers of art deco, and even managed to cause a riot by showing a stark white lacquered boudoir at the 14th Salon des Artistes Décorateurs in 1923.

In 1922 she opened her own gallery, Jean Désert, in Rue du Fauborg Saint Honoré as an outlet for her designs. During the 1920s and 1930s she became one of the leading exponents of the revolutionary new theories of design and construction. She worked closely with many of the outstanding figures of the modern movement, including Le Corbusier and J.J.P Oud. Well to the fore of the group she exhibited chrome, steel tube and glass furniture in 1925 - the same year as Mies van der Rohe and Marcel Breuer and well before Le Corbusier. The furniture was used in Eileen Gray's own interiors, the most celebrated of which was that completed in 1922 for the famous modiste, Madame Mathieu-Lévy (better known as Suzanne Talbot). Her interior design schemes of the period seem both modern and stylish even today.

Eileen Gray's next major contribution to design was in architecture. Encouraged by Le Corbusier and J.J.P Oud, she designed two houses in the Alpes Maritimes, one at Roquebrune which was built from 1926-1929, and the other at Castellar, built from 1932-1934. Both houses are considered to be among the purest examples of domestic architecture and interior design of the period. The inter-war years also saw Eileen Gray's 'Centre des Vacances' project, which was shown in Le Corbusier's Pavilion des Temps Nouveaux at the Paris International Exhibition of 1937.

After the war, and up to her death in 1976, Eileen Gray continued to work as a designer on both major projects like the Cultural and Social Centre, which occupied her from 1946-1949, and on a number of smaller furniture designs. One of her last tasks was to work with Zeev Aram on the introduction of her designs onto the world market. Examples of her early work are in the V&A collection and her E1027 adjustable table is in the permanent design collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; these make a fitting tribute to her contribution to modern design. The Royal Society of Arts appointed her a Royal Designer for Industry in 1972.

Eileen Gray died in Paris in 1976.

Modernism

Rejecting ornament and embracing minimalism, Modernism became the single most important new style or philosophy of architecture and furniture and design of the 20th century. It was associated with an analytical approach, a strictly rational use of (often new) materials, structural innovation and the elimination of ornament. It was also known as International Modernism or International Style, after an exhibition of modernist architecture in America in 1932 by the architect Philip Johnson.

The style became characterised by an emphasis on volume, asymmetrical compositions, and minimal ornamentation. In Britain, the term Modern Movement has been used to describe the rigorous modernist designs of the 1930s to the early 1960s. Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier were the pioneers of the movement, with the latter having a profound impact on the design of many public housing schemes in Britain.

Condition report:
A1