The great female figures in the history of design

05/26/2021

Very talented women have left their mark on the history of design in the 20th century. Yet, less well paid than their male counterparts, even less rewarded, too few of them achieved the notoriety they deserved during their lifetime. An injustice that experts and curators are trying to repair. The proof is in the retrospectives devoted to Charlotte Perriand in 2005-2006, then more recently to Eileen Gray in 2013, by one of the most influential cultural institutions in contemporary art, the Centre Pompidou.

At a close look at the pivotal periods in the history of design, there have always been innovative and inspired female designers: from the Bauhaus era to the 1980s, through the development of industrial design after World War II. This article looks back at the great female figures in the history of design, and the somewhat lesser known ones, often to a fault.

One of the first great female figures in the history of design is named Eileen Gray (1878-1976). Born in Enniscorthy in the south of Ireland, Eileen Gray was determined to pursue an artistic career and gave up marriage with the determination to enter art school. She entered the Slade School of Fine Art in London, then decided to go alone to live in Paris. In 1902 she exhibited a watercolor at the Grand Palais, then a painting in 1905 for the Salon de la Société des artistes français. She gradually moved into arts and crafts and in 1910 opened a workshop with the master lacquerer and sculptor of Japanese origin, naturalized French, Senzo Sugawara. She then began to exhibit decorative panels, combining lacquerware and rare woods, geometric abstractions and Japanese-inspired motifs.

Eileen Gray, portrait painted by Berenice Abbott, ca. 1925. Courtesy of the National Museum of Ireland.

The early 1920s marked a turning point in Eileen Gray's career. She became aware of the Dutch avant-garde De Stijl movement and the early steel tube designs of Marcel Breuer, which led her to abandon the Art Deco style. She then began to design furniture. She is, with Marcel Breuer, René Herbst, Charlotte Perriand or Gerrit Rietveld (design-market link), one of the precursors of tubular steel structure furniture. Then came the great project of her career: she built, from 1926 to 1929 with her partner the Romanian architect Jean Badovici, the villa E 1027, considered one of the masterpieces of modern architecture of the time. She collaborated on the structure of the house with Badovici, and also created all of the furniture.

Coiffeuse-paravent, 1926-1929, design Eileen Gray. © Mnam-Cci © Dist. RMN-GP. A total artist, if Eileen Gray began her career with painting, she launched into furniture design and demonstrated her capacity for innovation to design functional furniture.

The Villa E 1027 (E for Eileen, 10 for Jean's J, 10th letter of the alphabet, 2 for Badovici's B, 7 for Gray's G), construction: 1929. Architecture and design: Jean Badovici Eileen Gray, interior design and furniture: Eileen Gray. Self-taught in the field of architecture, Eileen Gray will take 3 years to build the plans of the project with Jean Badovici. The villa is located in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin in the Alpes-Maritimes.

Villa E 1027, view of the living room. In the foreground you can recognize the Transat and Bibendum armchairs and the Centimeter rug created by Eileen Gray.

Villa E 1027, view of the alcove area in the main room, with the headboard, pillow closet, and book rack restored to their original form and the Marine rug. Furniture designed entirely by Eileen Gray. © Manuel Bougot

Transat chair, Eileen Gray design, 1926-1929. A piece made for the Villa. Wood, metal, and synthetic leather. Its name is a direct reference to the folding chairs installed on the decks of transatlantic ships. Mnam-Cci/Jean-Claude Planchet. Dist. RMN-GP

She was one of the great figures of the Bauhaus School (1919-1933) and invented modern tapestry. Anni Albers (1899-1994) remains, however, rather unknown. Born into the Berlin bourgeoisie, she enrolled in the Hamburg School of Applied Arts, which she left unsatisfied, to try the Bauhaus (design-market link) in 1922. The woman who was still called Annie Fleischmann first tried her hand at wood and metal workshops, but reluctantly had to switch to textiles, as she suffered from a neurological condition called Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease. Inspired by the courses of colors of the painter Paul Klee (1879-1940), Albers concretizes the objectives of the Bauhaus by conceiving tapestries halfway between the piece of furniture and the painting, between the single piece and the multiple. She made weaving an avant-garde art form in which a powerfully colorful language of abstract patterns developed.

*Anni Albers, wall tapestry, 1926. Silk and cotton. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.© 2018 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/DACS, London.*

Anni Albers, rug, 1959, wool. Marked by a trip to Mexico with her husband, the painter Josef Albers, she was inspired by the pre-Columbian artistic expression found in this rug. Anni Albers became a source of inspiration for many artists. Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University. © 2018 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/DACS, London.

Of course, among the pioneers of design is Charlotte Perriand (1903-1999). Noticed in the 20s by Le Corbusier, she will collaborate 10 years (1927-1937) with the brilliant Swiss architect and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret to design the interior furniture of buildings designed by the 2 architects. Thus, we owe her the famous Chaise Longue model LC4 also called "Chaise Longue Le Corbusier". But Charlotte Perriand is much more than this shortcut. Close to the European, Japanese and Brazilian avant-gardes, she led an intense career for 75 years that led her to create rational and elegant furniture, to carry out numerous interior designs for some of the most daring projects of their time, until devoting nearly 20 years of her life (1967-1989) to the design of the resort "Les Arcs".

Chaise Longue LC4, design Charlotte Perriand, 1928. For the time a revolutionary seat because made with a bent metal structure, and but above all very technical and functional since it allows a continuous adjustment that follows the shape of the body. To design it, Charlotte Perriand was inspired by aviation catalogs and worked on the techniques of car bodywork. Initially launched by Thonet, it is the Italian house Casssina that publishes the chair exclusively since 1965.

LC7 swivel chair designed by Charlotte Perriand in 1927 and unjustly signed Le Corbusier. A piece considered a design classic and reissued exclusively by the Italian house Cassina. The structure of the LC7 swivel chair is made of robust stainless steel. Clean and elegant lines in the spirit of the Bauhaus

View of the exhibition "Charlotte Perriand's New World" organized at the Louis Vuitton Foundation (2019-2020). In the 1^er plan, reconstruction of the exhibition of March 31, 1955 entitled "Proposition d'une synthèse des arts, Paris 1955. Le Corbusier, Fernand Léger, Charlotte Perriand". One can recognize the iconic coffee table with the triangular design "Mexique 527" (Charlotte Perriand, 1952) as well as a modular storage bookcase

*View of the exhibition "Charlotte Perriand's New World" organized at the Fondation Louis Vuitton (2019-2020). Presentation of various furniture made by Charlotte Perria*nd.

View of the exhibition "Charlotte Perriand's New World" organized at the Fondation Louis Vuitton (2019-2020). 526 Nuage bookcase, Charlotte Perriand design. A popular piece of furniture for vintage design enthusiasts that allows you to combine various elements (stand, shelf, cheek, doors and drawers) with different materials (wood, metal and aluminum).

In 1948, the Eames produced a seat elevated to the status of art. The Chair is a real sculpture that allows you to adopt different positions, from sitting to lying down through various intermediaries conducive to reading for example.

*An aesthetic manifesto of organic design, the Eames drew inspiration for their extraordinary seating from the "Floating figure" sculpture by French-born American artist Gaston Lachaise (1882-1935).*

Eames Long Chair (European version), still called the Lounge Chair 670 and its Ottoman 671 footrest. To make this model, the Eames will work for years on the technique of molded plywood. This mythical chair is published since 1956 by the American firm Herman Miller for the American market. In Europe, Vitra bought the license in 1984 and continues today to produce this timeless design classic.

*Lounge Chair 670, back view.Three molded plywood shells make up the chair, veneered with rosewood or rosewood for a gorgeous finish. A vintage design must-have!*

A name that resonates in post-war design history and still today: Knoll. Florence Knoll (1917-2019), presided from 1955 to 1965 over the destiny of the very famous American furniture and office equipment publisher Knoll, founded in 1938 by the man who would become her husband, Hans Knoll. Considered by some to be the "founding mother of technological design", Florence Knoll, along with her husband, imposed a "Knoll" style that blended interior architecture, design, production, textiles and graphic design in office furnishings. Gifted, she was a student of German designer and architect Mies van der Rohe and worked with Walter Gropius (1883-1969) and Marcel Breuer (1902-1981). He is credited with many pieces of furniture characterized by elegant and functional design.

"Parallel" chair, Florence Knoll design for Knoll International, 1959. With her husband, and for their company, Florence Knoll multiplied collaborations with the best designers in the second half of the 1940s: Eero Saarinen, Pierre Jeanneret, Mies van der Rohe, then later Isamu Noguchi or Harry Bertoia.

*Settee with side table, Florence Knoll design, 1960s.*

*Marble oval dining table, Florence Knoll design for Knoll International, circa 1970s.*

Beyond these 5 great female figures of modern and contemporary design, for the sake of completeness, it is worth mentioning the German designer and interior architect Lilly Reich (1885-1947), who worked for many years with Mies van der Rohe. Eino Aalto née Marsio (1894-1949) was not only the wife of... and did not only create glasses (the Bölgeblick line of tableware for Iittala). With her husband, Alvar Aalto (1898-1916, married in 1924), one of the most famous Finnish architects and designers, she designed from the 1920s not only buildings, but also interior surfaces, furniture, lamps, furnishings and glassware. In 1935, the Aalto's, along with Maire Gullichsen and Nils-Gustav Hahl created Artek, a company that sold lighting and furniture designed by the Aalto's, which still exists (owned by Vitra since 2013).

In 1929 for the Barcelona International Exposition, architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe commissioned Lilly Reich to create and supervise the various exhibition pavilions, including the famous German Pavilion. A symbol of the modern architecture of the time, built with innovative construction principles and rather luxurious materials, it has since been rebuilt identically. A masterpiece in the history of architecture for which Reich's artistic contribution has been unfairly erased. It is the 1^rst collaborative work by Reich and Mies, and the beginning of their association.

Villa Tugendhat, completed in 1930, and located in Brno, Czech Republic. A symbol of the international style in the modern movement in architecture as it developed in Europe during the 1920s, it is a well-known building in architectural history. As a close collaborator of Mies van der Rohe, Lilly Reich was actively involved in its creation.

A view of the Paimio Sanatorium (Finland), an iconic architectural achievement built from 1929 to 1933 by Alvar Aalto and Aino Aalto. The building is considered by many to be one of the couple's major works.

A view of a room in the Paimio Sanatorium. Aino and her husband Alvar designed all the furnishings and fittings for the sanatorium. Some furniture, like the Paimio chair seen here are still produced by the firm Artek.

A legendary chair, the "Paimio," 1932. With its organic form, all flowing lines and volumes and made with natural materials, this armchair adapts to the goal of offering sanatorium patients an ideal position.

Great country of design, Italy has also seen the emergence of 1^er designers and visual artists; among them, Anna Ferrieri (1918-2006), artistic director of Kartell from 1976 to 1987, Lina Bo Bardi (1914-1992), Gae Aulenti (1927-2012) and Afra Scarpa (1937-2011). On the Scandinavian side, let's mention the Swedish Greta Grossman (1906-1999), who was behind the Grasshopper and Cobra lamps. Finally, the Englishwoman Lucienne Day (1917-2010), wife of designer Robin Day, was one of the most influential textile designers of the 1950s and 1960s.