Eyre de Lanux
1894 – 1996
Eyre de Lanux born Elizabeth Eyre was a major American artist, designer, decorator, and writer of the Art Deco and Parisian Modernist eras. Based in Paris during the interwar period, she established herself through furniture defined by clean geometric lines, lacquered surfaces, leather, and hand-woven rugs. Her visionary work, often compared to that of Eileen Gray, makes her one of the most daring female figures of the 1920s and 1930s avant-garde.
Biography
Trained at the Art Students League in New York, she married French diplomat Pierre de Lanux in 1918 and relocated to Paris. She continued her studies under sculptor Antoine Bourdelle and immersed herself in the capital's cultural avant-garde.
In the 1920s, she partnered with British weaver Evelyn Wyld (a former collaborator of Eileen Gray). Together, they produced unique furniture ensembles: Eyre designed lacquered, metal, and wooden furniture, while Evelyn crafted rugs with bold geometric and Cubist patterns.
Exhibiting at the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs and the Salon d'Automne, she captivated Parisian high society with architectural furniture accented with shagreen, smooth leather, and amber. Her work was celebrated for its understated elegance and rejection of unnecessary ornament.
A key figure in Parisian literary salons (close to Natalie Barney), she also pursued a career as an illustrator and writer. Following World War II, she returned to the United States, where she continued writing and painting until her death at the age of 102 in 1996.
"Eyre de Lanux combined the rigor of Cubism with the sensuality of noble materials, creating furniture of absolute modernism that stands alongside the creations of Eileen Gray and Jean-Michel Frank.”
