IRELAND National Museum of Ireland Collins Barracks Benburb Street Dublin 7 Ireland Tel: +353 1 677 7444 EILEEN GRAY The new permanent exhibition on the life and work of Eileen Gray (1878-1976) has opened at the National Museum of Ireland, Dublin. The exhibition, which is based around the Gray's personal effects, traces the designer/architect's career from her early works in lacquer through to her architecture, notably the modernist villa E.1027 on the south coast of France. Born on 9 August 1878, at the family home in Brownswood, Enniscorthy, Ireland, Gray spent her childhood in London and was among the first women to be admitted to the Slade School of Art where she took up painting before undergoing an apprenticeship in a laquer workshop. In 1902 she moved to Paris, where she was taught by the Japanese lacquer master Seizo Sugawara. During the 1920s and 1930s she became one of the leading exponents of the revolutionary new theories of design and worked closely with many of the leading figures of the modern movement, including Le Corbusier. In 1929 she completed E-1027, her first work of architecture. The house, which is documented extensively in the new exhibition, was designed in association with Romanian ÈmigrÈ Jean Badovici. The other house to feature prominently in the exhibition is Tempa a Pailla, at Castellar, built between 1932-34. After the Second World War and up to her death, she continued to work as a designer, on both major projects like the cultural and social centre that occupied her from 1946-1949, and on a number of smaller furniture designs. In 1970 after having been all but forgotten Gray's lacquer works were "rediscovered" by an American collector. The subsequent exposure led to her appointment as a Royal Designer to Industry by the Royal Society of Art, London. Eileen Gray died on 31 October 1976. The National Museum of Ireland acquired her collection in 2000.