Cleve Gray (September 22, 1918 – December 8, 2004) was an American Abstract expressionist painter, who was also associated with Color Field painting and Lyrical Abstraction.
Early life and education
Gray was born Cleve Ginsberg: the family changed their name to Gray in 1936. Gray attended the Ethical Culture School in New York City (1924–1932). From the age of 11 until the age of 14 he had his first formal art training with Antonia Nell, who had been a student of George Bellows. From 15 to 18 he attended the Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts; where he studied painting with Bartlett Hayes and won the Samuel F. B. Morse Prize for most promising art student. In 1940 he graduated from Princeton University summa cum laude, with a degree in Art and Archeology. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. At Princeton he studied painting with James C. Davis and Far Eastern Art with George Rowley, under whose supervision he wrote his thesis on Yuan dynasty landscape painting.
Professional work
After graduation in 1941 Gray moved to Tucson, Arizona. In Arizona he exhibited his landscape paintings and still lifes at the Alfred Messer Studio Gallery in Tucson. In 1942 he returned to New York and joined the United States Army. During World War II, he served in the signal intelligence service in Britain, France and Germany, where he rose to the rank of sergeant. After the liberation of Paris he was the first American GI to greet Pablo Picasso and Gertrude Stein. He began informal art training with the French artists André Lhote and Jacques Villon, continuing his art studies in Paris after the war.
Gray returned to the United States in 1946. In 1949 he moved to the house his parents had owned on a 94-acre (380,000 m2) property in Warren, Connecticut, and lived there for the rest of his life. He married the noted author Francine du Plessix on April 23, 1957. They worked in separate studios in two outbuildings with a driveway in between.
Gray was a veteran of scores of exhibitions throughout his career, as listed below, from the early days Tucson, through to postwar Paris and New York, and most recently in 2002 at the Berry-Hill Gallery in New York City. His paintings are held in the collections of numerous prominent museums and institutions. In 2009 the art critic Karen Wilkin curated a posthumous retrospective of his work at the Boca Raton Museum of Art, Florida, and other posthumous exhibitions have been held.
Death
His wife of 47 years, Francine du Plessix Gray, reported that he died of a "massive subdural hematoma suffered after he fell on ice and hit his head."
Museum collections
- Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts
- Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York
- Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, Florida
- The Brooklyn Museum, New York City
- Cathedral of St. John the Divine Art Gallery, New York City
- Columbia University Art Gallery, New York City
- Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio
- The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
- Grey Art Gallery and Study Center, New York University, New York City
- Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City
- Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu, Hawaii
- The Jewish Museum, New York City
- Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
- Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
- Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
- Museum of Modern Art, New York City
- The Neuberger Museum, State University of New York at Purchase
- New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut
- The Newark Museum, New Jersey
- Norton Gallery of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida
- Oklahoma City Art Center, Oklahoma
- The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
- The Art Museum, Princeton University, New Jersey
- Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts
- Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
- The Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut
- Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City
- Willard Gibbs Research Laboratory, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
- Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts
- Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut
Publications
- Contributing editor for Art in America, from 1960
- Editor, David Smith by David Smith, Holt, Rinehart & Winston (1968)
- Editor, John Marin by John Marin, Holt, Rinehart & Winston (1970)
- Editor, Hans Richter by Hans Richter, Holt, Rinehart & Winston (1971)
References
Further reading
- Weber, Nicholas Fox (1998). Cleve Gray. New York: Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 978-0-8109-4138-0.
- Buck Jr., Robert T.; Hess, Thomas B. (1977). Cleve Gray: Paintings, 1966–1977. Buffalo, N.Y.: Albright-Knox Art Gallery. ISBN 978-0-914782-13-1.
- Buck, Robert. Cleve Gray Works on Paper 1940-1986, The Brooklyn Museum, New York, 1986
