Jack Lorimer Gray, American (1927-1981)
Oil on canvas, signed lower right, "Jack Gray" and titled on the reverse “Jack Gray Dare's Herring Fishing Near Blandford, Nova Scotia." The painting depicts two men working in a double-ended fishing dory with the stern facing the viewer and beautiful highlights in the foreground. The man closest to the stern is holding the tiller steering the boat while the other is handling nets. At the horizon is a spit of land tapering to a punt with a single house and on the left near the shore is a green-hulled fishing boat with a number of seagulls attracted by the fish. There is a medium sized wave coming towards the main boat and you can feel that the boat is about to be lifted by the wave action. The subject matter and rendering of this painting is a fine example of his most desired work. (PA1049)
Condition: Excellent.
Dimensions of Painting: Height 30, Width 50 inches.
Dimensions of Frame: Height 39 1/2, Width 59 1/2 inches.
Biography: From childhood, Jack Lorimer Gray rendered images of the sea, but never once considered he would become one of North America's greatest maritime artists. After an art-filled youth, Gray earned a scholarship to the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and subsequently, entry to Ecole des Beaux Arts in Montreal.
A lifelong sailor who handled a multitude of ships with a captain's expertise, Gray lived a majority of his life onboard one of his yachts, schooners or working boats. His early artworks feature sites throughout his native Nova Scotia, including a small island that he loved called East Ironbound, however he also painted in New York, Maine and Florida. Throughout his life, Gray's heart belonged to the sea, and his paintings beckon audiences to follow suit. 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. In 2006, a piece titled "Man at Sea" was sold by Christie's in New York for $91,200.
Provenance: The back of the painting has a label from the Burrichter/Kierlin Collection. A book titled "Charting New Waters" shows paintings from this collection. This premier private collection of 19th and 20th-century American and European paintings centering on water - life's spiritual and essential element. The forty-three superb examples, selected from the substantial holdings of Mary Burrichter and Robert Kierlin, include some remarkably beautiful and rare works by leading artists of the Hudson River School, French and American Impressionists, and early modernists. Expanding the meaning of the word marine art from "oceanic" to "aquatic," Burrichter and Kierlin have collected exceptional paintings that include all bodies of water, from infinite oceans and coursing rivers to trickling stream, tranquil lakes, and inland pools. The collection spotlights some brilliant and rarely seen international art and cross-continental currents - most especially between the United States and France and England - that are illuminated in the excellent catalog entries written by some of America's leading art historians, university professors, and museum curators. The introductory essay chronicles the altruistic vision of the collectors and explores some of the connections and influences that took place between American and European artists. In this richly illustrated book are early maritime images by James Buttersworth and Fitz Henry Lane; later maritime painters Alfred Bricher and Edward Moran; coastal scenes by Wassily Kandinsky and Claude Monet; figural works by Mary Cassatt and Theodore Robinson; important pictures by the less-well-known Dutch-trained artist William Frederick De Haas and the extraordinary African-American artist Robert Duncanson; and early career canvases by Vincent van Gogh and Piet Mondrian. Burrichter/Kierlin purchased the famous painting of "Washington Crossing the Delaware" from the person who lent it to the White House for several years and after exhibiting the piece at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in Winona, Minnesota situated on the banks of the upper Mississippi River, they decided to sell the painting whereby Christie's, New York sold it for $45,000,000. Visitors to this visionary collection will find surprising masterpieces.
