She arrived in Paris as an independent-minded 24-year-old, drawn from her home in Co Wexford to the vibrancy of the belle époque art scene.
Her pioneering architecture and design would make her one of the most significant figures in the modernist firmament, but when she died in 1976, a reclusive 98-year-old, true recognition was only beginning to come her way.
Almost 40 years later, with the opening by President Michael D Higgins of a major exhibition of her work at the Centre Pompidou, Eileen Gray’s adoptive city finally put the seal on her place in the European pantheon.
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Higgins attended the retrospective as he began a three-day official visit to Paris yesterday. He also met French president François Hollande at the Élysée Palace and received military honours under dazzling spring sunshine at the Arc de Triomphe.
‘Spirit of independence’
After viewing the exhibition with French culture minister Aurélie Filippetti, Mr Higgins said Gray belonged to a venerable tradition of European artists who found sanctuary in Paris. “She uncovered and manifested her genius gradually . . . Her spirit of independence, of difference and above all of integrity shines through the story of her life and her artistic journey,” he said.
Mr Filippetti said Gray was “a great artist” whose work was ahead of its time. “When you look at the pieces she created, it was in the 1920s and 1930s, but they look like they were created yesterday,” she said.
Bringing together Gray’s paintings, furniture and architecture, the exhibition traces the artist’s life from her influences and early lacquerwork to models and plans for her masterpiece, the E1027 villa on the Côte d’Azur.
“In France, she is, with Le Corbusier, the major reference point for modernism. She is an essential figure,” said Cloé Pitiot, chief curator of the Pompidou retrospective.
Higgins received plaudits across Paris yesterday, reflecting a general goodwill towards Ireland but also a certain French regard for the man Le Monde described admiringly this week as “le turbulent président-poète irlandais”.
Arriving for military honours at the Arc – a ceremony normally reserved for state visits – French defence minister (and proud Breton) Jean-Yves Le Drian greeted Mr Higgins with a bear-hug. The two men stood side by side for note-perfect renditions of Amhrán na bhFiann and La Marseillaise before Mr Higgins placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Solider.
Standing ovation
At the Sorbonne, the President received a standing ovation after his wide-ranging scholarly reflection on “Europe in the Year of the Citizen”.
It was a passionate call for a broader conception of European society as one bound not by economics but by culture and morality. “Our existence, we must remind ourselves, is as social beings, not as commodified consumers without a history, incapable of envisioning an alternative future.” That future was one of intergenerational justice, where youth unemployment was no longer “our greatest problem”, as it was today.
“We require an inclusive discourse, but it requires – as a mere beginning – a realisation that our global problems, in an ever more interdependent world, are neither amenable to any type of previously tested (and failed) technocratic response, nor are our challenges merely economic. They are social, political and cultural.”
Later, Mr Higgins and his wife Sabina chatted like old friends with Mr Hollande and his partner Valérie Trierweiler. Their meeting at the Élysée ran well over time, leaving protocol staff flustered but reminding everyone that the political tensions of the Sarkozy era have – for now at least – faded.
Mr Higgins emphasised the common ground, praising Mr Hollande’s call for an EU that values “cohesion and solidarity as well as economic growth”.
