Born in 1878 to an aristocratic Irish family, Eileen Gray is considered a leading practitioner of 20th Century Modernism. Gray moved to Paris after visiting the Expositione Universelle in 1900, where she was especially taken with the work of Charles Rennie MacIntosh.After studies at the Academie Julian, Gray relocated to London in 1905, where she learned the art of lacquerwork. This became the focus of her career for the next decade, as she went back to and worked with Seizo Sugiwara.