ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes a different kind of argument. Instead of differentiating Gray’s work from that of her male counterparts in the field of architecture, It explores how it intersected with that of other women artists. Since the work of Eileen Gray was rediscovered in the late 1960s, there has been a steady resurgence of interest in this Irish-born designer and architect, culminating in a flurry of recent biographies, monographs and exhibition catalogues. Feminists have good reason to treat such traditional media divisions and hierarchies with some suspicion; given the role they have played in marginalizing women’s work and in obscuring many of the ambitious agendas and common threads running through their practice. Drawing inspiration from English avant-garde artists and designers such as Whistler and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Romaine Brooks anticipated the restrained tonalities of modernist decoration schemes long before they became fashionable in the late 1920s and 1930s.
