Long and Storied History to Iconic Chair
31 December 2009
The eileen gray bibendum chair is considered a classic piece of furniture design, and has endured for decades as a favored chair design. The chair gets its name from the Michelin Man, and one look at it will tell you why: it looks just like a Michelin Man sitting down to take a load off his feet. The back of the chair is rounded and seamed in a way that makes it look like rows of tires. Gray, an Irish immigrant, who studied in Paris and later opened a gallery in that city, died at the age of 98, shortly after a successful retrospective of her work was held in London. But the charm of her chair design lives on: the chairs currently fetch upward of five thousand dollars.
