late years and death

When the Second World War broke out in France Gray was interned as a foreign national and her homes were looted. Italian soldiers briefly inhabited E-1027, using Le Corbusier murals for target practice. After the war, Gray’s career was largely forgotten until art historian Joseph Rykwert published an essay on her work in Domus magazine in 1967.

The essay sparked a revival of interest in Gray’s work, culminating in an extensive exhibition of her creations in London in the early 1970s. Next, she received an honorary fellowship from the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, and later Yves Saint Laurent purchased one of her Art Deco lacquered screens. She also commissioned certain of her unique furniture pieces to be mass produced. Eileen Gray died in 1976. She is buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, but her grave isn’t identified, as her family never paid the burial fee.