EILEEN GRAY, 1927
Object
The Tube Light by Eileen Gray is a visionary lamp for the time in which it was designed, an object that foreshadowed an essential and minimalist aesthetic that continues to influence our tastes today.
Gray created the lamp in 1927 as part of the furnishings for her Villa E-1027 on the French Riviera (which also features other famous pieces like the Bibendum armchair).
The Tube Light by Eileen Gray gained fame as one of the earliest examples of tubular lighting (a few years earlier, Rietveld had experimented with the same technology for his timeless Pendant lamp L40).
With the Tube Light, Gray took a bold step by creating a lamp with direct light and no lampshade. It features no decoration, only a chromed metal base, a fluorescent tube lamp, and a chromed steel column with two fittings to support the light source and conceal the wires.
This lamp was the symblo of a minimalist, modern aesthetic that rejects decoration and embraces the beauty of the industrial object, stripped of any adornment and reduced to its essentials. The whole modernist ethos of rejecting decoration and celebrating the machine is encapsulated in this object of great elegance and aesthetic harmony.
Today, the Tube Light is still in production, reissued by German brand ClassiCon.
Tube Light in Museums
This significant design object has had a profound cultural impact, inspiring architects and designers for generations with its formal elegance and essential aesthetic.
It is also highly valued by collectors, who have rediscovered Eileen Gray in recent years and are willing to purchase her originals at prices that rank among the highest ever achieved for design objects (her Fauteuil aux Dragons chair fetched the highest price ever for a design object, surpassing 21 million euros).
Gray’s furniture is collected by the most prestigious museums worldwide. Specifically, the Tube Light can be found at the MoMA in New York.
Eileen Gray
ClassiCon
Founded in 1990, ClassiCon is a German manufacturer renowned for producing high-quality classic and contemporary furniture. The company is celebrated for reissuing design icons, such as the works of Eileen Gray, and for promoting new talents, always maintaining a balance between tradition and avant-garde.
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Details
Produced by ClassiCon
Dimensions: 91.5 x 25.1 cm
Materials:
- Chromed metal
- Incandescent tube
