Eileen Gray (1878-1976) Irish/French, Glass and Chrome Height Adjustable Table. Known among collectors and historians as "Table E-1027," it was originally created by Gray in 1927 for her E-1027 house, and has since become one of her most famous designs. It has been suggested that Gray came up with the idea for the unique lightweight table for her sister, who ate breakfast in bed, and before her death Gray sold the design to British furniture manufacturer Aram. 

Condition: Commensurate with age and use. 

Size: 20 x 20 x 30 1/2 in. 

Kathleen Eileen Moray Smith (best known as Eileen Gray) was born on August 9th, 1878 in Ireland. Her father, James McLaren Smith, was a Scottish landscape painter, and encouraged her interest in drawing early on. Gray’s mother, Eveleen Pounden, became the 19th Baroness Gray in 1895 after the death of her uncle, with her daughter from then on known as Eileen Gray. Gray was primarily educated by governesses, registering as a fine arts student at the Slade School in London from 1900 to 1902. Her main influences here were Henry Tonks and Frederick Brown, but it was meeting furniture restorer Dean Charles in 1901 that changed the course of her life. Picking up lacquering from him, she eventually found her way to Paris where she trained under Japanese artist Seizo Sugawara, collaborating with him to open a workshop there in 1910. For the next ten years she honed her craft, redesigning the Rue de Lota in 1917 which became known as the “epitome of Art Deco.” During the 20s her pieces became simpler and more industrial due to her growing interest in the work of Le Corbusier and other Modernists, and her focus shifted to architecture, teaching herself about design theory. Her masterpiece, enigmatically named E-1027, is considered one of the first fully modernist houses, built on the southern shore of France. Its design codified her mantra: “The interior plan should not be the incidental result of the facade; it should lead to a complete harmonious and logical life.” By the 1930s Gray was focused on creating lightweight, functional, multi-purpose furniture which she called “camping style.” In 1931 Gray started work on a new house, Tempe à Pailla, above the nearby town of Menton, but during World War II she was interned as a foreign national, and her houses were looted and damaged by bombs, with the Nazis using E-1027 for target practice. The next twenty years were a period of obscurity for Gray, whose feminism and open bisexuality was ahead of the time, but in her waning years scholarly reevaluations brought European design students to her door, eager to study under her. She died on Halloween in 1976, and was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris. Since her death her achievements have been more fully recognized, with retrospective exhibitions in Ireland, France, and America.

Commensurate with age and use.