Design Mementos Ep1: Self-promotion [past]
Here we tell the story of Irish architect and interior designer Eileen Gray, through her work and struggles to promote her practice as a queer woman during the 20th century.
With this scripted version of our podcast, you can see how we discuss design through human problems with links and photo references.
Image: Eileen Gray by unknown
Introduction & story of Eileen Gray
elsa:
So, self-promotion, why this topic?
eszter:
Well self-promotion is a bit of a dirty word, isn't it? Many creatives see it as an act of selling out or showing off and bragging, but it's such an essential thing to be involved with, especially if you're an independent practitioner who needs to network, to grow your practice. But, it's scary. It's also something we as recent design graduates had zero guidance with from our design education
elsa:
And for women, it is statistically harder to self promote. In the 2019 Harvard Business Review article 'why don't women self promote as much as men?' they talk about a study that finds that there is a substantial gender gap in self-promotion. Women, systematically provide less favourable assessments on their own past performances and potential future ability than equally performing men. They also found that various studies showed that the gender gap was not driven by confidence or strategy incentives and that the results did not change even when participants in the study were given money or promotion as a motivation. Which I find really hard to believe... but it is true!
eszter:
It's so hard to understand because I do jump to this conclusion that it's about confidence, but I was also reading this research by AIGA where they stated that women make up over half of the design industry, but only 29% of them are in leadership and directorial positions. Their survey of female, male and non-binary presence in 33 major design conferences over 2020 showed that 43% were female and 0.5% non-binary. It's also noted that women are generally in the shorter panel discussions, rather than key speaker roles. Maybe this ties into your previous comment but when AIGA questioned these conferences as to why they had these unbalanced speakers. They said they did not invite fewer women, but that women tended not to accept the invites, and that they were mostly unavailable. There are so many reasons why that might be but a few assumptions that pop into mind is maybe it's about family dynamics? Women are generally primary caregivers, whether that be to children or other family members. But also like we mentioned with women not being in those leadership positions, maybe they feel like they can't take time out of work to attend these events.
elsa:
Yeah, and by not having more women speaking at these conferences, it becomes an issue of female representation, which is something that we also see a massive lack of in design history. It is important to have these role models, as evidence that you can become a successful designer as a female.
Traditionally in Design History work of women is less likely to be celebrated in comparison to their male peers. Here we zoom in on females in art and design history, that didn't get the attention that they deserve. To demonstrate that innovative and valuable design can be generated by any gender.
Sketch - Eileen Gray by Eszter Dolák
So our muse this month is Eileen Gray, an Irish architect, painter and designer.
Eileen Gray was born in Ireland in 1878. It's a story as old as art and design history, a woman ingeniously produces groundbreaking work, alluding to critical attention for her entire career. Eileen Gray's story, at least, has a happy ending. Because her unique creative force was recognized in her lifetime. Her style was based upon new and innovative technologies and the particular use of glass and steel and reinforced concrete.
The idea that form should follow function was deeply embedded in her style. She also embraced minimalism and a rejection of ornaments and emphasis on open and flowing interior spaces and living spaces that are no longer defined by walls, doors and hallways, but living dining and kitchen spaces tend to flow into each other, together as part of continuous interior space, reflecting a more casual and relaxed way of life. This is something that really comes to the forefront in a work E-1027, which we'll talk about later.
Eileen Gray side table E1027 photography by Michael Foley
She was an Irish painter architect and designer and pioneer of the modern movement in architecture, the first woman to enrol in the Slade School of Fine Arts in 1898, where she studied drawing and painting. There she discovered Japanese in East Asian lacquerware and she started covering objects and furniture decoratively with this lacquer, which comes from a native tree in Japan. This technique is traditionally practised in the humid coastline in Japan. But Eileen was creative enough to work on this difficult technique in the bathroom of her tiny studio space. She gave this technique her own twist by applying it to room dividers.
Eileen later moved to Paris to become part of the art scene. In 1922, she opened up a gallery under the shop name Jean Désert to sell furniture that she and her friends had designed, many of them belong to the same fashionable Parisian lesbian scene. The reason that she named her shop Jean was to give it a male name, that was more trustable at the time for buyers to actually come into the shop.
Various furniture pieces from the E1027 house photography by G Travels
What I was interested in, what I wondered was actually how did she evade critical attention for so long in her life? And that is because women like Eileen were largely absent from the Parisian decorative art scene and from the art scene in general, where she was working as a young designer. So, therefore, she was kind of rare. People were less likely to look at her work and also she was deeply shy or uncomfortable with self-promotion which is, of course, the topic of we are exploring. As she put herself in one of her memoirs 'she was not a pusher' maybe that was the reason why she didn't get the place that she should have had or the attention that she should have had. She never was keen on self-promotion and faded from view until the very last decades of her life. From the late 1960s, articles and small exhibition started to rediscover her. And in 1973, designer Zeev Aram also the founder of ARAM furniture approached her to ask if her furniture designs were originally made in small quantities and if he could put some in production.
Eileen was very shy when Aram approached her and also she kept asking him 'Do you think this is worthwhile to do?' Even though she was an amazing designer she still didn't have that confidence.
Zeev Aram helped to convince Eileen that her work was really great. They worked on pieces together until she died in 1976. Those pieces have never stopped being made and being sold since.
Some feminist theory writers argue that her lack of attention in designing the scene also had to do with her sexual fluidity. That Gray, as a queer woman, brought a certain sensitivity to furniture that had not been seen before, and that people were intimidated and afraid of it. We are going to talk now about Corbusier who was outraged by her work, E-1027. He was outraged that a woman could have made such a significant work in a style that he considered his own. Unlike Corbusier, Gray despised self-promotion, he didn't and he kind of took over that house.
Interior of E-1027 featuring Corbusiers mural on the back wall and various furniture pieces designed by Eileen Gray photography by Manuel Bougot
The house emerged from a model from a new approach to modern contemporary houses that were designed by Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius and other modernist pioneers. It had wide walls large windows and a flat roof, and during corporate industrial materials and its construction, but her design was more gentle and more sensual. Because of her sensitivity towards design and the casual and relaxed atmosphere that she brought into the home.
She studied the site, in France, and carefully looked at the weather changes and the lighting, the water and rocks and the greenery to ensure that her design made the most of the surroundings. The natural beauty, really trying to amplify nature, she was also conscious that when designing the furniture.
Exterior of E-1027 designed by Eileen Gray photography by Manuel Bougot
From 1938 to 1939, Le Corbusier painted eight massive murals in 1827 which Gray was absolutely horrified by she took this as a serious attack on her work, on her seriousness as an architect. Gray developed a design and architecture aesthetic of desire that radically challenged particular modern movements that people like Le Corbusier championed. One can read the violence toward Gray in E-1027, as something very much on purpose. Forcing himself on Gray's work, in a way that is very unwanted and very not appreciated. However, It seemed that Le Corbusier considered as a sort of gift when he painted these murals. He described them simply as 'seven great schemes prepared, free of charge. Gray's contribution to modern design and architecture has until recently been effectively erased from history. But luckily not anymore because we're talking about it now, and there have also been great exhibitions of her work around the world. On top of that now there's been some restoration at E-1027 since the French government has declared it a historic monument, luckily.
What I find so inspiring about Eileen Gray is that she, is shy and she is afraid of self-promotion and wondering if her work is worthwhile. She still isn't afraid of making bold statements in her work and bringing sensuality into her design. I'd like to end the story of Eileen, with a quote. Something she used to help guide her in design 'to create one must first question everything.'
eszter:
Eileen's struggle and discomfort for self-promotion is still a present issue today and while Women's Empowerment has waves throughout society especially in the last few years, social anxieties, expectations of male or female roles and their pressures are persistent for everyone.
With new opportunities like social media, it's easier to access wide-reaching self-promotion techniques to explore this topic and its impact further in the next article I talk with three practising creatives on their own experiences. Independent artist Helen Goodwin, designer and re-engineer Jeffrey Heiligers and architect, Britta Knoble of Studios Symbiosis.
Additional references: Research by Elsa Sier & Erica Pereira & Melanie Standage
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