PETER WOYTUK | Large Sculpture

 


Cleve Gray


The MORRISONGALLERY
8 Old Barn Road
Kent, Connecticut 06757

860.927.4501

Hours
weds-sat 10.30 - 5.30
sunday 1-4

  

CLEVE GRAY | Bio

Public Collections

  • Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts
  • Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York
  • The Brooklyn Museum, New York
  • Cathedral of Saint John the Divine Art Gallery, New York
  • Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine
  • Columbia University Art Gallery, New York
  • Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio
  • The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
  • Grey Art Gallery and Study Center, New York University, New York
  • Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
  • Heckscher Museum, Huntington, New York
  • Honolulu Academy of the Arts, Hawaii
  • The Jewish Museum, New York
  • Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign
  • Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Connecticut
  • The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
  • Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul
  • Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence
  • Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
  • Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
  • The Museum of Modern Art, New York
  • National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
  • 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
  • Shearson Lehman Hutton Collection, New York
  • Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
  • Shite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
  • Tennessee Botanical Gardens and Fine Arts Center, Nashville
  • Union Station, Hartford, Connecticut
  • Vanderbilt Art Gallery, Nashville, Tennessee
  • The Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut
  • Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
  • Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts
  • Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut
  • Willard Gibbs Research Laboratory, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

Background | Cleve Gray's Footprints

  • 1918 Born September 22, in New York City.
  • 1924-32 Attends Ethical Culture School in New York City.
  • 1929-33 Begins formal art training in New York with Antonia Nell, a pupil of George Bellows.
  • 1933-36 Attends Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts; studies painting with Bartlett Hayes. Wins the Samuel F. B. Morse Prize for most promising art student.
  • 1936-40 Attends Princeton University and graduates summa cum laude, with a degree in Art and Archaeology. Studies painting with James C. Davis and Far Eastern Art with George Rowley, for whom he writes his thesis on Yuan dynasty landscape painting.
  • 1940-41 Lives for several months after graduation in Mendham, New Jersey; then moves to Tucson, Arizona.
  • 1942 Exhibits landscapes and still lifes at Alfred Messer Studio Gallery in Tucson before returning to New York to join the United States Army.
  • 1943-46 During World War II, serves in England, France, and Germany, where he makes color drawings of wartime destruction. After the liberation of Paris in August.1944 studies informally with André Lhote and Jacques Villon. After the war, continues studies with Lhote and Villon under the GI Bill. Exhibits Paris work at Galerie Durand-Ruel, American Painters in Paris.
  • 1946-47 Returning to New York, paints London Ruins series, working on it through 1948. New York Times critic Edward Alden Jewell picks Gray’s painting London Ruins #1 for Critic’s Choice exhibition at Grand Central Art Gallery, New York City. Joins Jacques Seligmann Gallery and has first solo New York exhibition. Exhibits at Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Annual Exhibition; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Paintings of the Year; Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, Abstract and Surrealist American Art—34th Annual; Research Studio, Maitland, Florida, Eighteen Young American Painters. Returns to Arizona.
  • 1948 Travels and draws throughout France and Italy. Exhibits at Jacques Seligmann Gallery, New York, London Ruins; Art Institute of Chicago, 58th Annual Exhibition; Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts, Biennial Exhibition.
  • 1949 Moves to Warren, Connecticut. Exhibits at Jacques Seligmann Gallery, New York; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington. D.C., 21st Biennial Exhibition; Art Institute of Chicago, 58th Annual Exhibition.
  • 1950 Exhibits at Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Young American Painters; Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, Works by Cleve Gray, American Artist.
  • 1951 Exhibits at Brooklyn Museum, New York, International Watercolor Exhibition; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, Young Painters U.S.A.; Dayton Art Institute, Ohio, The City by the River and the Sea; Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign, Contemporary Ameritan Painting; wins University of Illinois Purchase Award; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, .Philadelphia, 146th Annual Exhibition (subsequent exhibitions: 1958, 1960, 1962, 1964).
  • 1952 Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, 62nd Annual Exhibition.
  • 1953 Completes Apocalypse Series, allegorical and figurative works. Exhibits at Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, 63rd Annual Exhibition.
  • 1954 Completes Ghandi {sicj Praying. Exhibits at Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama, Steel, Iron, Men; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, American Paintings, 1954; Des Moines Art Center, Iowa, American Paintings 1954; Jacques Seligmann Gallery, New York; Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, 64th Annual Exhibition.
  • 1955 Continues landscapes of Arizona and still lifes, working on them through early 1958. Still strongly influenced by Jacques Villon. Exhibits at Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 24th Biennial Exhibition; Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York, Italy Rediscovered.
  • 1957 Marries writer Francine du Plessix. Exhibits at Jacques Seligmann Gallery, New York; Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign, 20th - Century Works of Art; Philadelphia Art Alliance, Philadelphia, solo exhibition.
  • 1958 Travels through France and Spain; begins using largely black-and-white palette. Exhibits at Solo Gallery, Richmond, Virginia, Cleve Gray; Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan, 1st Biennial Exhibition.
  • 1959 First son, Thaddeus, born in November. Completes first sculpture in plaster. Last exhibition at Jacques Seligmann Gallery, New York. Exhibits at Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign, Contemporary American Painting and Sculpture.
    1960 Summer months spent in France and Italy. Begins Maratea series, which continues through 1961. Becomes contributing editor of Art in America. Joins Staempfli Gallery, solo exhibition. Exhibits at Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, Eight from Connecticut; Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan, 2nd Biennial Exhibition.
  • 1961 Second son, Luke, born in April. Begins lithography at the Pratt Graphic Art Institute, New York. Starts work on the Etruscan series. Wins the Ford Foundation Purchase. Exhibits at Galerie Internationale, Washington, D.C.; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Abstract Expressionists and Imagists; Tokyo, Japan, 6th International Art Exhibition; John Herron Art Institute, Indianapolis, Contemporary Drawings; The Art Center in Hargate, St. Paul’s School, Concord, New Hampshire, Drawings USA/61; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 27th Biennial Exhibition.
  • 1962 Completes Altamira, first significant manifestation of the vertical element in his painting. Exhibits at Staempfli Gallery, New York; Trabia Morris Gallery, New York, Art of the Americas; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 157th Annual Exhibition.
  • 1963 Completes Reverend Quan Duc, first artistic response to the crisis in Vietnam. As artist-in-residence at Oklahoma Art Center, Oklahoma City, under auspices of Ford Foundation Program, exhibits paintings. Completes Oklahoma, acquired by The New School of Social Research, New York, where it is later accidentally destroyed. Exhibits at Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 28th Annual Exhibition; The Art Museum, Princeton University, Response; Instituto de Cultura Hispanica, Madrid, Arte de America y España; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Annual Exhibition. Solo exhibitions at Jerrold Morris International Gallery, Toronto; Galeria Grattacielo, Milan, Italy; and Solo Gallery, Richmond, Virginia.
  • 1964 During the summer, drives across the Peloponnesus and sails through Greek Islands. Develops a vertical form, initially based on studies of the female figure. (Vertical form later culminates as the dominating image in Threnody, 1973.) Paintings evoke classical origins: Delphi, Crete, los, the Augury series, and the Mycenae series. Exhibits at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 159th Annual Exhibition; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Friends Collect. Solo exhibitions at Staempfli Gallery, New York, Recent Paintings; and The Art Center in Hargate, St. Paul’s School, Concord, New Hampshire, Drawings USA/64.
  • 1965 Returns to Greece and the Aegean in the summer. Completes series of small canvases evocative of the two trips to Greece. Exhibits at Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Annual Exhibition; Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences, Virginia, American Drawing Biennial; De Cordova and Dana Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts, New England Art: Prints; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts, New England Regional Drawing Exhibition. First exhibition at Saidenberg Gallery, New York.
  • 1966 Translates Marcel Duchamp’s A l’Infinitif. Begins, with Francine, a period of several years of intense involvement with the anti—Vietnam War movement. Emphasizes the vertical form again in Demeter and the Demeter Landscape Series, the first of a number of series dealing with ancient earth goddesses. Begins to work almost exclusively in acrylics. Exhibits at Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Recent Still Lifes; The Art Center in Hargate, St. Paul’s School, Concord, New Hampshire, Drawings USA/66.
  • 1967 Completes a series on Gaia, Greek goddess of the earth and of death, followed by the Ceres series. Exhibits at Florida State University Art Gallery, Tallahassee, National Lithography Exhibition; University Art Museum, Berkeley, California, Selections 7967. Last solo show at Saidenberg Gallery, New York, the Ceres series.
  • 1968 Upon sculptor’s death, edits David Smith by David Smith, published by Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1968, reprinted by Thames & Hudson. At the New York City branch of the Parisian printer Mourlot, produces color lithographs inspired by the Ceres paintings. Completes the Hera series. Becomes a trustee of the Rhode Island School of Design, serving until 1979. Exhibits at The Art Center in Hargate, St. Paul’s School, Concord, New Hampshire.
  • 1969 Exhibits at Phillips Collection, Washington D.C., Loan Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting; Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, Reductive Vision; Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign, American Painting and Sculpture,
  • 1948—1969; Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts, Seven Decades—Seven Alumni of Phillips Academy.
  • 1970 Joins Betty Parsons Gallery. Appointed to the Board of Trustees, New York School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture (until 1975). Edits John Marin by John Marin, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970. First solo exhibition at Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, Paintings and Painted Forms. Sneed Hillman Gallery, Rockford, Illinois, solo exhibition; The Graphics Gallery, San Francisco, Cleve Gray: Prints and Drawings. After trips through Morocco, begins Morocco series and Tamengrout series. For thirtieth reunion of the class of 1940, The Art Museum, Princeton University, holds a retrospective dedicated by Gray to the students killed at Kent State University. Under the auspices of the Ford Foundation, lives in Hawaii for six months with family as artist-in-residence at the Honolulu Academy of Art. The retrospective held at Princeton travels to Hawaii. Exhibition at the Honolulu Academy is followed, several months later, by work completed in Hawaii during his residency. Hawaii series continues well into 1971.
  • 1971 Second exhibition, at Honolulu Academy of Arts, of work painted during term as artist-in-residence. Returning to Connecticut from Hawaii, works on many small bronze sculptures using the lost wax process. Visits Spain with family in August and begins the Sheba series upon returning home. Edits Hans Richter by Hans Richter, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1971. Exhibits at Museo Universidad de Puerto Rico, Lithographias de Ia Coleccidn Mourlot; Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul, Drawings USA/71; Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul, Drawings in St. Paul (through 1972).
  • 1972 Commissioned by Bryan Robertson, director of the Neuberger Museum, State University of New York at Purchase, to create paintings for a gallery designed by Philip Johnson measuring 90 feet by 60 feet by 22 feet. Begins work on this project, entitled Threnody, which culminates in a suite of fourteen contiguous panels, each approximately 20 feet square. Exhibits Hawaiian paintings at Betty Parsons Gallery, New York; The Art Museum, Princeton University, New Jersey, European and American Ant from the Princeton Collections.
  • 1973 Completes Threnody as a memorial to the dead of both sides in the Vietnam War. Travels to East Africa with family. Exhibits at Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, 29 Bronzes; Sneed Hillman Gallery, Rockford, Illinois. 1974 Neuberger Museum, State University of New York at Purchase, opening of Threnody. Exhibited through 1976. Threnody reinstalled in 1979, 1983, 1984, 1987, 1992—93, 1996. Exhibits at Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, Nine Connecticut Artists; Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, Tniptychs. About fifteen years later, destroys most of Triptychs series. First trip to Nantucket with his family.
  • 1975 Begins the Supplement series, followed by the Conjugation and Conjunction series, and the Lateral series. A liturgical vestment based upon his designs is completed for St. John’s Episcopal Church, Washington, Connecticut. Spends six weeks in Jerusalem with family, as guest of Mayor Teddy Kollek. Exhibits at Neuberger Museum, State University of New York at Purchase, exhibition of working drawings, studies, photographs, and a scale model documenting the making of Threnody. In March travels to England.
  • 1976 Joins Board of Trustees of the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, a position held until 1978. Exhibition at Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, the Conjugation and Conjunction series. Exhibits at American Embassy, Bucharest, Rumania, Arte Americana Contemporana. Completes Milk Street series in Nantucket, small paintings with shaped canvas. Begins Nantucket series.
  • 1977 Completes Warren series, which soon evolve into large vertical paintings. Exhibits at Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, Cleve Gray: Paintings, 1966—1977. Exhibition travels to the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence; Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, Illinois. Late in the year, Gray family travels in Egypt, inspiring later work. Appointed Commissioner on the Connecticut Commission for the Arts (until 1982). Exhibits at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New Acquisitions.
  • 1978 Completes Hatshepsut series and Rameses series. Produces Perne series, inspired by William Butler Yeats’s poem “Sailing to Byzantium.” Exhibits at Betty Parsons Gallery, New York; Cathedral Museum of Art, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York, Sacred Images—East and West.
  • 1979 Exhibition of Perne and Hatshepsut series at Betty Parsons Gallery, New York; Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Connecticut, exhibition of Perne and Warren series. Threnody reinstalled at the Neuberger Museum from June to August. Exhibits at Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design, Los Angeles, California, and Parsons School of Design, New York, New York/A Selection from the Last Ten Years; Sneed Gallery, Rockford, Illinois, 20th Anniversary Exhibition; Rockland Center for the Arts, Maine, Works on Paper, U.S.A.
  • 1980 Invited as artist-in-residence at the American Academy, Rome (where Francine is writer-in-residence). In Rome, using acrylic mixed with Carrara marble dust, begins work on the Roman Walls series. He later produces prints based on the same theme. Exhibits Roman Walls at the American Academy. In the summer, travels to Caracas, Venezuela, at the invitation of American Ambassador William Luers and the United States Information Agency. Exhibition at Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Roman Walls. Returning from Caracas, enlarges exploration of calligraphic line with the Here series and the Man and Nature series. Late in year, begins an association of many years with Irving Galleries, Palm Beach, Florida. Exhibits at Commune di Udine, Civici Musei e Gallerie di Storia e Arte, Arte Americana Contemporanea; Yale Divinity School, New Haven, Connecticut, Cleve Gray; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana, Painting and Sculpture Today.
  • 1981 In January, returns as visiting scholar to the American Academy in Rome. Completes the Zen series, works on paper with a brush and bamboo pen, a continuation of Man and Nature series. Exhibits at Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, New Paintings—Roman Walls; Michael H. Lord Gallery 700, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Stamford Museum and Nature Center, Connecticut, Classic Americans: XX Century Painters and Sculptors.
  • 1982 Returns to the American Academy in Rome in January. Back in the United States, completes a set of vestments for St. James Episcopal Church in Farmington, Connecticut. Travels to India, Indonesia, and Japan under the auspices of the U.S.I.A. on a lecture tour with Francine. Before leaving Japan, Grays stay in Kyoto, Japan’s religious capital, and he studies city’s Zen gardens. Kyoto gardens inspire Zen Gardens series of 1982 and 1983. Exhibits at Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, Group Exhibition; Washington Art Association, Washington Depot, Connecticut, works on paper.
  • 1983 Threnody reinstalled at the Neuberger Museum for six months. Completes the Zen Gardens series and the Bridge series. Paints Rocks