Jack L. Gray
Encyclopedia
Jack L. Gray was a Canadian
artist, known particularly for marine art.
, Nova Scotia
on April 28, 1927. He was the only child of civil engineer Samuel William Gray. As a schoolboy young Jack loved drawing pictures, especially those of ships at sea, and his talent was recognized and encouraged by Wylie Greer. By the end of World War II
he was a student at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design during Donald McKay's tenure. It was here that the young Gray met both Earl Bailly and Joseph Purcell. Gray never completed his studies at NSCAD, but went out on sketching trips both alone, and also with former classmate Purcell. During the summer of 1947 these two artists rented the loft of a fish store at New Harbour NS and made many drawings and paintings. Gray traveled briefly to Montreal
in 1948, to take a life drawing course from Arthur Lismer
at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
. Gray was caught sketching a boat's hull in the class, and the instructor commented that, given that a future course might be offered in boat drawing, Gray likely would then be found drawing a nude. Jack's evident disinterest Lismer's classroom sessions soon led to private discussions between the two artists, which proved very fruitful. In those years Gray also spent several seasons at sea with the last of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia
's dory-fishing schooner
fleet, and amassed a portfolio of sketches, notes and photographs.
in 1948, leading to several commissions. With subsequent patronage from Philadelphia dowager heiress Mary Dayton Cavendish, brewery owner Colonel Sidney C. Oland and his family, Gray gradually advanced his career, living aboard boats in the early 1950s. When the steamship Dufferin Bell was wrecked on the Nova Scotian coast in 1951, Gray travelled with the salvage crew and filled several sketchbooks, attracting the attention of the press. An early friendship with author Thomas Head Raddall
led to Gray's pen-and ink illustrations in Raddall's A Muster of Arms; Gray also painted a wartime scene of Duncan's Cove, Nova Scotia
for the book's dust jacket. While based in Chester NS in the summers from 1953 to 1955, he painted in (his landlord) Herman Walker's sail loft in the Back Harbour.
In the mid 1950s Gray moved to New York City
, and initially painted in studios on boats in Flushing Bay
. It was here that he first used the cantankerous flat-bottomed skiff he called the S.O.B. for waterborne sketching trips. For one of his sketches Gray obtained permission from authorities in Brooklyn Navy Yard
to use the deck of the rusting decommissioned aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6)
. He was represented by several commercial New York galleries while living in the city, and briefly occupied one of the Des Artistes flats in the Upper West Side
. A body of work from this period later became a well-known series of reproductions, the New York Harbor Collection. However, the collection was incomplete since many of the significant canvas works from that period were already sold. While in New York, Gray became acquainted with folksinger Ed McCurdy
, and the two remained lifelong friends.
In 1958 an engagement overseas with Samuel Bronston
's Hollywood production company took Gray to Spain, where he worked towards the posters for the film John Paul Jones
.
By 1959 Gray, with the encouragement of US Senator Donald E. Finnegan, had moved to Winterport, Maine
, settling in an 18th-century Cape Cod
on the banks of the Penobscot River
, and painting what later critics, notably art expert Ian Muncaster of Halifax, would characterize as his best work. The Maine studio was short-lived, as Gray sold it in 1961 and moved to the Marlborough Woods area in the south end of Halifax, purchasing a property on the Northwest Arm
, with a dock for his boat. Gray negotiated with New York publicity firm Peed & Gammon in 1961, who arranged for Gray's canvas Dressing Down, the Gully to find its way into the hands of newly elected US president John F. Kennedy
. This resulted in a July 1962 visit to the White House
in Washington by Gray, including a conversation with the President. Gammon and Peed had leaked this information in advance to the press, and upon publication of the White House visit news, bids from many patrons and galleries rapidly ensued. Gray remained friends with Roland Gammon
for years afterward.
Gray moved back aboard a boat in 1965, in West Palm Beach, Florida
, and strengthened relationships with galleries on Palm Beach's Worth Avenue
that had begun in the spring of 1961 and would remain in place for the rest of his life. Concurrently, Gray maintained a summer hideaway near Blue Rocks Nova Scotia, where he continued to sketch his favorite subject, inshore fishermen in small boats. Gray befriended actor Gary Merrill
in Palm Beach. Iconic Hollywood photographer Phil Stern
visited Gray's Nova Scotia studio in the early 1970s and amassed a huge archive of photographic images of Gray and his surroundings. This photo essay was originally earmarked to be part of a book on the artist's life and work, but the book was not completed. Stern's photo essay remained hidden in the Stern archive in California, and was never published.
In his adult years Gray was known as a witty raconteur and motorboat skipper, and in the latter part of his life often sailed across the Gulf Stream
to the Bahamas. He was a frequent visitor to the Blue Bee Bar in New Plymouth, Green Turtle Cay
and was a personal friend to Miss Emily. In Palm Beach, Gray was observed frequently at the Sailfish Club of Florida.
Gray had many exhibitions in the 1970s throughout the world. Most unusual of these was the Spring 1978 retrospective exhibition in Halifax, held in the old powder magazine
on Citadel Hill
.
A frequent foreground subject in many of Gray's paintings was a Bush island boat which Gray personally referred to as "ram boats". Almost as frequently, one or more fishermen's dory
boats appear in his work. Small Tancook schooners and early Cape Island boat designs also feature prominently. While a good many large sailing ships were depicted, many paintings showed the view from the deck of one of these large vessels, and these "deck scenes" form a significant sub-classification of his life's work.
Most of Gray's fame came from his oil-on-canvas pieces. Although he painted on pre-made canvas-on-board for some of his early works, he did hand-stretching of double-primed canvas for the majority of his output. All his oil works had an inscription on the back about the location of the scene depicted, often in considerable detail. Gray seldom dated his pieces, but used a code after his signature, for example: a dash plus three dots translating as 1958. His watercolor pieces diminished in number as his oil works gained notoriety, and today the surviving watercolors are rare collectibles. Gray painted his canvas pieces with oil colors mixed with turpentine. Despite the increasing availability of acrylic paints in the 1970s, Gray never used them.
Throughout much of Gray's life, he patronized family-oriented restaurants that made use of paper place-mats. On these he left drawings using either his sketching pens and pencils, when he had them on hand, or an ordinary ballpoint. The vast majority of these impromptu drawings were discarded by restaurant staff, but a few salient examples survive, notably in the hands of the management of Testa's of Palm Beach, Florida
.
Less well-known was Gray's passion for boat design. One of his earliest (ca. 1950) floating studios was a Royal Canadian Navy
harbor launch, which had been sold to fishermen post-war, and when Gray acquired this boat the Kathleen R. H. he made extensive modifications to the vessel. His floating studios were never new boats, and all had some of the artist's personally specified refits to some degree. Gray's most notable vessel was the Sea Gypsy, a 21 metre trawler. In the 1970s, Gray collaborated with an American boat-building yard on the design of a custom yacht for a client.
, West Palm Beach, on 4 September 1981. His ashes were scattered at sea, just by the Tanner's Pass buoy (Near the entrance to Lunenburg Bay) from the decks of the fishing boat Doris IV, skippered by John H. Tanner.
The value of Gray's works rapidly increased after his death. Art dealers searched for his works by contacting people in Nova Scotia, Maine and Florida. Several forgeries appeared, and more than one work (including a high-profile canvas that was on prominent public display in Halifax) was reported stolen. The artist's early sketchbooks, originally kept in chronological order, were separated by a Halifax dealer in the 1960s, and sold as individually framed drawings.
With encouragement from both public museums and privately-operated art galleries, a considerable revival of interest in Gray's life and work was seen to be underway after 2001. An increasing number of retrospective exhibitions were mounted, and his canvas works commanded ever-higher prices.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
artist, known particularly for marine art.
Early life and education
Jack Lorimer Gray was born in HalifaxCity of Halifax
Halifax is a city in Canada, which was the capital of the province of Nova Scotia and shire town of Halifax County. It was the largest city in Atlantic Canada until it was amalgamated into Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996...
, Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
on April 28, 1927. He was the only child of civil engineer Samuel William Gray. As a schoolboy young Jack loved drawing pictures, especially those of ships at sea, and his talent was recognized and encouraged by Wylie Greer. By the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
he was a student at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design during Donald McKay's tenure. It was here that the young Gray met both Earl Bailly and Joseph Purcell. Gray never completed his studies at NSCAD, but went out on sketching trips both alone, and also with former classmate Purcell. During the summer of 1947 these two artists rented the loft of a fish store at New Harbour NS and made many drawings and paintings. Gray traveled briefly to Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
in 1948, to take a life drawing course from Arthur Lismer
Arthur Lismer
Arthur Lismer, CC was an English-born Canadian painter and member of the Group of Seven.-Early life:At age 13 he apprenticed at a photo-engraving company. He was awarded a scholarship, and used this time to take evening classes at the Sheffield School of Arts from 1898 until 1905...
at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is a major museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1860, making it Canada's oldest art institution, it moved to its current location in 1912 thanks to a large donation from businessman James Ross....
. Gray was caught sketching a boat's hull in the class, and the instructor commented that, given that a future course might be offered in boat drawing, Gray likely would then be found drawing a nude. Jack's evident disinterest Lismer's classroom sessions soon led to private discussions between the two artists, which proved very fruitful. In those years Gray also spent several seasons at sea with the last of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia
Lunenburg, Nova Scotia
Lunenburg , is a Canadian port town in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia.Situated on the province's South Shore, Lunenburg is located on a peninsula at the western side of Mahone Bay. The town is approximately 90 kilometres southwest of the county boundary with the Halifax Regional Municipality.The...
's dory-fishing schooner
Schooner
A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....
fleet, and amassed a portfolio of sketches, notes and photographs.
Career
His first major solo exhibition was at the Hackmatack Inn in Chester, Nova ScotiaChester, Nova Scotia
Chester is an incorporated Canadian village located in and part of Nova Scotia's Chester Municipal District in the southeastern part of Lunenburg County.-History:...
in 1948, leading to several commissions. With subsequent patronage from Philadelphia dowager heiress Mary Dayton Cavendish, brewery owner Colonel Sidney C. Oland and his family, Gray gradually advanced his career, living aboard boats in the early 1950s. When the steamship Dufferin Bell was wrecked on the Nova Scotian coast in 1951, Gray travelled with the salvage crew and filled several sketchbooks, attracting the attention of the press. An early friendship with author Thomas Head Raddall
Thomas Head Raddall
Thomas Head Raddall, OC, FRSC was a Canadian writer of history and historical fiction.- Early life :Born at Hythe, Kent, England in 1903, Raddall was the son of British army officer Thomas Head Raddall and Ellen Raddall...
led to Gray's pen-and ink illustrations in Raddall's A Muster of Arms; Gray also painted a wartime scene of Duncan's Cove, Nova Scotia
Duncan's Cove, Nova Scotia
Duncan's Cove is a small rural community on the Chebucto Peninsula in the Halifax Regional Municipality on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean on the Ketch Harbour Road , 19 kilometers from Halifax. The community is located beside Chebucto Head, the prominent coastal headland.-History:Duncan's Cove...
for the book's dust jacket. While based in Chester NS in the summers from 1953 to 1955, he painted in (his landlord) Herman Walker's sail loft in the Back Harbour.
In the mid 1950s Gray moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, and initially painted in studios on boats in Flushing Bay
Flushing Bay, New York
Flushing Bay is a tidal embayment in New York City. It is located on the south side of the East River and stretches to the south near the neighborhood of Flushing, Queens. It is bordered on the west by LaGuardia Airport and the Grand Central Parkway, on the south by Northern Boulevard, and on the...
. It was here that he first used the cantankerous flat-bottomed skiff he called the S.O.B. for waterborne sketching trips. For one of his sketches Gray obtained permission from authorities in Brooklyn Navy Yard
Brooklyn Navy Yard
The United States Navy Yard, New York–better known as the Brooklyn Navy Yard or the New York Naval Shipyard –was an American shipyard located in Brooklyn, northeast of the Battery on the East River in Wallabout Basin, a semicircular bend of the river across from Corlear's Hook in Manhattan...
to use the deck of the rusting decommissioned aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6)
USS Enterprise (CV-6)
USS Enterprise , colloquially referred to as the "Big E," was the sixth aircraft carrier of the United States Navy and the seventh U.S. Navy ship to bear the name. Launched in 1936, she was a ship of the Yorktown class, and one of only three American carriers commissioned prior to World War II to...
. He was represented by several commercial New York galleries while living in the city, and briefly occupied one of the Des Artistes flats in the Upper West Side
Upper West Side
The Upper West Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, that lies between Central Park and the Hudson River and between West 59th Street and West 125th Street...
. A body of work from this period later became a well-known series of reproductions, the New York Harbor Collection. However, the collection was incomplete since many of the significant canvas works from that period were already sold. While in New York, Gray became acquainted with folksinger Ed McCurdy
Ed McCurdy
Ed McCurdy was an American folk singer, songwriter, and television actor. His anti-war classic, "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream" , inspired and gave hope to those in the peace movement.-Career:...
, and the two remained lifelong friends.
In 1958 an engagement overseas with Samuel Bronston
Samuel Bronston
Samuel Bronston was a Bessarabian-born American film producer, film director, and a nephew of socialist revolutionary figure, Leon Trotsky. He was also the petitioner in a U.S...
's Hollywood production company took Gray to Spain, where he worked towards the posters for the film John Paul Jones
John Paul Jones (film)
John Paul Jones is a 1959 biographical epic film about John Paul Jones. The film was made by Samuel Bronston Productions and released by Warner Bros. It was directed by John Farrow and produced by Samuel Bronston from a screenplay by John Farrow, Ben Hecht, Jesse Lasky Jr. from the story Nor'wester...
.
By 1959 Gray, with the encouragement of US Senator Donald E. Finnegan, had moved to Winterport, Maine
Winterport, Maine
Winterport is a town in Waldo County, Maine, United States. The population was 3,602 at the 2000 census. Each August the town hosts the Winterport Music Festival.-History:...
, settling in an 18th-century Cape Cod
Cape Cod (house)
A Cape Cod cottage is a style of house originating in New England in the 17th century. It is traditionally characterized by a low, broad frame building, generally a story and a half high, with a steep, pitched roof with end gables, a large central chimney and very little ornamentation...
on the banks of the Penobscot River
Penobscot River
The Penobscot River is a river in the U.S. state of Maine. Including the river's West Branch and South Branch increases the Penobscot's length to , making it the second longest river system in Maine and the longest entirely in the state. Its drainage basin contains .It arises from four branches...
, and painting what later critics, notably art expert Ian Muncaster of Halifax, would characterize as his best work. The Maine studio was short-lived, as Gray sold it in 1961 and moved to the Marlborough Woods area in the south end of Halifax, purchasing a property on the Northwest Arm
Northwest Arm
The Northwest Arm, originally named Sandwich River, is an inlet in eastern Canada off the Atlantic Ocean in Nova Scotia's Halifax Regional Municipality.-Geography:...
, with a dock for his boat. Gray negotiated with New York publicity firm Peed & Gammon in 1961, who arranged for Gray's canvas Dressing Down, the Gully to find its way into the hands of newly elected US president John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
. This resulted in a July 1962 visit to the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
in Washington by Gray, including a conversation with the President. Gammon and Peed had leaked this information in advance to the press, and upon publication of the White House visit news, bids from many patrons and galleries rapidly ensued. Gray remained friends with Roland Gammon
Roland Gammon
Roland Gammon was a noted American writer. A native of Caribou, Maine, he graduated from Colby College and then studied at Oxford University. He served with the Air Corps in World War II and then became a reporter for Time-Life....
for years afterward.
Gray moved back aboard a boat in 1965, in West Palm Beach, Florida
West Palm Beach, Florida
West Palm Beach, is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and is the most populous city in and county seat of Palm Beach County, the third most populous county in Florida with a 2010 population of 1,320,134. The city is also the oldest incorporated municipality in South Florida...
, and strengthened relationships with galleries on Palm Beach's Worth Avenue
Worth Avenue
Worth Avenue, sometimes referred to as the Rodeo Drive of Florida, is a famous upscale shopping district in Palm Beach, Florida, in the United States. The street stretches four blocks from Lake Worth to the Atlantic Ocean. The street first became fashionable after the construction in 1918 of the...
that had begun in the spring of 1961 and would remain in place for the rest of his life. Concurrently, Gray maintained a summer hideaway near Blue Rocks Nova Scotia, where he continued to sketch his favorite subject, inshore fishermen in small boats. Gray befriended actor Gary Merrill
Gary Merrill
Gary Fred Merrill was an American film and television character actor whose credits included more than fifty feature films, a half-dozen mostly short-lived TV series, and dozens of television guest appearances....
in Palm Beach. Iconic Hollywood photographer Phil Stern
Phil Stern
Phil "Snapdragon" Stern is an award-winning American photographer noted for his iconic portraits of Hollywood stars, as well as his war photography while serving as a U.S. Army Ranger in the "Darby's Rangers" unit in the North African and Italian campaigns during World War II. Settling in Los...
visited Gray's Nova Scotia studio in the early 1970s and amassed a huge archive of photographic images of Gray and his surroundings. This photo essay was originally earmarked to be part of a book on the artist's life and work, but the book was not completed. Stern's photo essay remained hidden in the Stern archive in California, and was never published.
In his adult years Gray was known as a witty raconteur and motorboat skipper, and in the latter part of his life often sailed across the Gulf Stream
Gulf Stream
The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension towards Europe, the North Atlantic Drift, is a powerful, warm, and swift Atlantic ocean current that originates at the tip of Florida, and follows the eastern coastlines of the United States and Newfoundland before crossing the Atlantic Ocean...
to the Bahamas. He was a frequent visitor to the Blue Bee Bar in New Plymouth, Green Turtle Cay
Green Turtle Cay
Green Turtle Cay is an island in The Bahamas. It is located in the "Abaco Out Islands" and is long and 1/2 mile wide. It was named after the abundance of green turtles that inhabited the area. The population of the island is about 450 and its main settlement is New Plymouth which was founded in...
and was a personal friend to Miss Emily. In Palm Beach, Gray was observed frequently at the Sailfish Club of Florida.
Gray had many exhibitions in the 1970s throughout the world. Most unusual of these was the Spring 1978 retrospective exhibition in Halifax, held in the old powder magazine
Powder Magazine
Powder Magazine, Powder House, or Powderworks may refer to:* Gunpowder magazine*Magazine , the general term-in the United States:* Powder Magazine , listed on the NRHP in Alabama...
on Citadel Hill
Citadel Hill
Fort George is a National Historic Site in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and was established during Father Le Loutre's War....
.
A frequent foreground subject in many of Gray's paintings was a Bush island boat which Gray personally referred to as "ram boats". Almost as frequently, one or more fishermen's dory
Dory
The dory is a small, shallow-draft boat, about long. It is a lightweight and versatile boat with high sides, a flat bottom and sharp bows. They are easy to build because of their simple lines. For centuries, dories have been used as traditional fishing boats, both in coastal waters and in the...
boats appear in his work. Small Tancook schooners and early Cape Island boat designs also feature prominently. While a good many large sailing ships were depicted, many paintings showed the view from the deck of one of these large vessels, and these "deck scenes" form a significant sub-classification of his life's work.
Most of Gray's fame came from his oil-on-canvas pieces. Although he painted on pre-made canvas-on-board for some of his early works, he did hand-stretching of double-primed canvas for the majority of his output. All his oil works had an inscription on the back about the location of the scene depicted, often in considerable detail. Gray seldom dated his pieces, but used a code after his signature, for example: a dash plus three dots translating as 1958. His watercolor pieces diminished in number as his oil works gained notoriety, and today the surviving watercolors are rare collectibles. Gray painted his canvas pieces with oil colors mixed with turpentine. Despite the increasing availability of acrylic paints in the 1970s, Gray never used them.
Throughout much of Gray's life, he patronized family-oriented restaurants that made use of paper place-mats. On these he left drawings using either his sketching pens and pencils, when he had them on hand, or an ordinary ballpoint. The vast majority of these impromptu drawings were discarded by restaurant staff, but a few salient examples survive, notably in the hands of the management of Testa's of Palm Beach, Florida
Palm Beach, Florida
The Town of Palm Beach is an incorporated town in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. The Intracoastal Waterway separates it from the neighboring cities of West Palm Beach and Lake Worth...
.
Less well-known was Gray's passion for boat design. One of his earliest (ca. 1950) floating studios was a Royal Canadian Navy
Royal Canadian Navy
The history of the Royal Canadian Navy goes back to 1910, when the naval force was created as the Naval Service of Canada and renamed a year later by King George V. The Royal Canadian Navy is one of the three environmental commands of the Canadian Forces...
harbor launch, which had been sold to fishermen post-war, and when Gray acquired this boat the Kathleen R. H. he made extensive modifications to the vessel. His floating studios were never new boats, and all had some of the artist's personally specified refits to some degree. Gray's most notable vessel was the Sea Gypsy, a 21 metre trawler. In the 1970s, Gray collaborated with an American boat-building yard on the design of a custom yacht for a client.
Death and afterward
Gray was troubled with health issues during his last years. He died after a post-operative infection in Good Samaritan HospitalGood Samaritan Hospital
Good Samaritan Hospital may refer to:In the United States:*Good Samaritan Hospital — San Jose, California*Good Samaritan Hospital — Los Angeles*Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital — Downers Grove, Illinois...
, West Palm Beach, on 4 September 1981. His ashes were scattered at sea, just by the Tanner's Pass buoy (Near the entrance to Lunenburg Bay) from the decks of the fishing boat Doris IV, skippered by John H. Tanner.
The value of Gray's works rapidly increased after his death. Art dealers searched for his works by contacting people in Nova Scotia, Maine and Florida. Several forgeries appeared, and more than one work (including a high-profile canvas that was on prominent public display in Halifax) was reported stolen. The artist's early sketchbooks, originally kept in chronological order, were separated by a Halifax dealer in the 1960s, and sold as individually framed drawings.
With encouragement from both public museums and privately-operated art galleries, a considerable revival of interest in Gray's life and work was seen to be underway after 2001. An increasing number of retrospective exhibitions were mounted, and his canvas works commanded ever-higher prices.
External links
An existing reliable biography from a commercial source, has annotations detailing many of Gray's significant exhibitions in later years:- http://www.marineartsgallery.com/jack_gray/gray-bio.htm