Lacquer
The film Eileen Gray: Portrait will pay special attention to the story of Ms. Gray's designs in lacquer, which became instrumental in widening the use and appreciation of the material in the Western world. Having lived in Paris a few years, by 1906 Eileen Gray had developed a strong interest in the art of lacquer. Her attraction was mostly towards the austerity of the material, in marked contrast to the Art Nouveau movement which had proliferated in Paris.
She was introduced to Sougawara-san, a master of lacquer work from Johoij, a town in Northern Japan. He had arrived in Paris to maintain the lacquer collection for the Japanese lacquer exhibit at the Universal Exhibition of 1900. It was with Sougawara that she learned the Japanese tradition of lacquer, and it wasn't long before her painstaking efforts began to pay off.
Eileen kept a meticulous notebook of her experiments, achieving extraordinary tonalities of reddish brown, brilliant red, and most difficult, blue- She experimented with Sabi- powdered stone from Japan. She developed methods for making rugged or subtle textures on the lacquer surfaces and in adding silver, gold leaf, and mother-of pearl for dramatic effect. Her furniture designs became more austere, more clean lined, consistent with her aesthetic development as well as for the practicalities in the application of lacquer.
As Eileen became more skilled, her finished pieces, especially her screens, became more dramatic, more bold. Juxtaposing formalized figures or abstract line compositions on rich reds, browns and blues, reinterpreting the traditional black screens by using layers of lacquer bricks, gave her work a look of freshness and vigor and set it apart from previous work. Her screens and panels were widely exhibited at the time, influencing future generations of lacquer artists and styles, such as Art Deco. Her works are currently sought after by galleries and collectors all over the world.
