Video Loading
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 6
Cleve GrayCaptain Cook1971
1971
About the Item
Acrylic on canvas. Signed and dated lower right, titled verso.
69 x 68.25 in.
70.5 x 70 in. (framed)
Custom framed in a solid maple floater.
Provenance
Private Collection, Hilton Head Island, SC
Cleve Gray was born Cleve Ginsberg in New York on September 22, 1918. The family subsequently changed its surname to ‘Gray’ in 1936. He attended the Ethical Culture School in New York, and completed his college preparatory studies at Phillips Academy in Andover, MA, where he won the Morse Prize for most promising art student. In 1940, Gray graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University with degrees in art and archaeology. He wrote his thesis on Chinese landscape painting, which would later become an important influence on his own painterly practice.
Gray joined the U.S. Army in 1942 and was deployed to the U.K., France, and Germany, where he sketched wartime destruction. After the liberation of Paris in 1944, he began informal studies with the French artists André Lhote and Jacques Villon, which continued following the conclusion of the war. Soon after, he began to exhibit his work at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris, followed shortly by his first solo exhibition at the Jacques Seligmann Gallery in New York in 1947. Before 1950, Gray would participate in group exhibitions at such venerable institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C.; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Art Institute of Chicago.
In the 1960s, he formed a close friendship with the first generation Abstract Expressionist Barnett Newman. It was during this time that Gray experienced an artistic metamorphosis, dissolving his earlier cubist compositions in a sea of distilled color. This dramatic body of work marked the beginning of an artistic meditation that would last for over 40 years. The rigors of French modernism, the ethos of Abstract Expressionism, and the meditative restraint of Chinese and Japanese scroll painting commingle with astounding affect. The atmospheric, subdued tones of his 1960s paintings gradually gave way to bright, monochromatic fields of color, hazily washed onto the canvas in stain like swathes. Much of his work from the last three decades of his career feature striking graphic brushwork that conjures the influence of Japanese and Chinese calligraphy.
Beginning with his marriage in 1957 to the French author and New Yorker staff writer, Francine Du Plessix, Gray would spend the remainder of his life working out of his home base in Warren, CT, while continuously exhibiting and participating in residencies around the world. He enjoyed representation and exhibitions with some of the most influential galleries of the day, including the Betty Parsons Gallery, Staempfli Gallery, Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, Eva Cohon Gallery, and Berry-Hill Gallery. Cleve Gray died in Hartford, CT in 2004, at the age of 86.
Gray's work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and many other museums and institutional collections around the world.
Source: The New York Times and Loretta Howard Gallery, New York
- Creator:Cleve Gray (1918-2004, American)
- Creation Year:1971
- Dimensions:Height: 69 in (175.26 cm)Width: 68.25 in (173.36 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:Overall very good and stable condition. A few sporadic scuff marks. Light wear. Canvas is particularly thin in areas. Not examined under UV light.
- Gallery Location:Austin, TX
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU2287212496902
Cleve Gray
Cleve Gray was an American Abstract Expressionist painter. He was born on September 22, 1918, in New York. His works are displayed in various museums including, The Brooklyn Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Smithsonian Institute, The Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, The Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and The Phillips Collection. Gray died on December 8, 2004, in Hartford.
About the Seller
No Reviews Yet
Vetted Seller
These experienced sellers undergo a comprehensive evaluation by our team of in-house experts.
Established in 2020
1stDibs seller since 2023
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Austin, TX
- Return PolicyA return for this item may be initiated within 30 days of delivery.
More From This SellerView All
- Spanish GhostBy Kikuo SaitoLocated in Austin, TXAcrylic on canvas. Signed, dated, and titled verso. 52.25 x 52.75 in. 54 x 54.25 in. (framed) Custom framed in a maple hardwood floater. Provenance Salander O’Reilly Galleries, New York Private Collection, Connecticut Provenance Estate of Samuel Feinstein...Category
1980s Color-Field Abstract Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Acrylic
- Orange EdgeLocated in Austin, TXOil on canvas. Signed, titled, and dated verso. 40.25 x 34 in. 41.5 x 35.5 in. (framed) Custom framed in a solid maple floater, with a matte white finish. Provenance The Betty Par...Category
1960s Color-Field Abstract Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
- Arapahoe XIIBy Ludwig SanderLocated in Austin, TXOil on canvas. Signed, titled, dated verso. 40 x 44 in. 41.5 x 45.5 in. (framed) Custom framed in a natural cherry floater. Provenance Knoedler Contemporary, New York Ludwig Sand...Category
1970s Color-Field Abstract Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
- Yellow Tail IBy Sherron FrancisLocated in Austin, TXAcrylic and mixed media on canvas. Signed, titled, and dated verso. 40 x 76.5 in. 41.75 x 78.25 in. (framed) Custom framed in a solid, unfinished maple floater. Provenance Watson/de Nagy & Company, Houston Private Collection, New York Sherron Francis was born in 1940, in Downers Grove, IL outside of Chicago. She originally enrolled at the University of Oklahoma, but later transferred to the Kansas City Art Institute to focus more on art. Initially, Francis' practice was focused on figurative art, with visiting professor and renowned modern realist Philip Pearlstein remarking on Francis’ draftsman acumen. In the early 1960s, art dealers and gallerists from New York would visit the Institute to entice promising artists by offering scholarships and financial aid. Because such financial arrangements were only made for men, Francis had to persuade the school's leadership to allow for women to also be eligible for merit-based aid. Her advocacy was successful, and she ultimately graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1963. She would then proceed to obtain her MFA from the University of Indiana, before assuming a teaching position at Eastern Michigan University. In 1968, with only $300 on hand, Francis moved to 16 Waverly Place in SoHo, New York. The neighborhood was a hotbed for young AbEx artists of the day, and she quickly befriended the likes of Peter Reginato, Walter Darby Bannard, Michael Steiner, Peter Young, Peter Bradley...Category
1970s Post-War Abstract Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Mixed Media, Acrylic
- Warm Beach (#108)By Joyce KozloffLocated in Austin, TXAcrylic and graphite on canvas. Signed and titled verso. 59 x 58.5 in. 61 x 60.25 in. (framed) Custom framed in a maple floater with a polyurethane clear coat finish. Provenance B...Category
1970s Post-War Abstract Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Acrylic, Graphite
- Untitled (Savant Series)Located in Austin, TXAcrylic on canvas. Initialed and dated verso. 48 x 36 in. 49.5 x 37.5 in. (framed) Custom framed in a maple floater with a polyurethane clear coat finish. Provenance Iannetti Lanz...Category
1980s Post-War Abstract Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Acrylic
You May Also Like
- Pards GoldBy Jimi GleasonLocated in Phoenix, AZacrylic on canvas The surfaces of Jimi Gleason’s paintings have always responded to both the light and space of the environment they are in. The silver deposit paintings began in 20...Category
2010s Color-Field Abstract Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Acrylic
- "Open Window", Large Scale Minimalist Color-Field AbstractBy Sasha RogersLocated in Soquel, CALarge scale, compelling abstract titled "Open Window" by Canadian abstract painter Sasha Rogers (Canadian, b. 1969), daughter of premier art...Category
1980s Color-Field Abstract Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Acrylic
- UntitledBy Raymond ParkerLocated in Lawrence, NYProvenance: Fischbach Gallery, New York Collection of A. Aladar Marberger Ray Parker, a New York School Abstract Expressionist, was a colorist influenced by Cubism in his early wor...Category
1970s Color-Field Abstract Paintings
MaterialsAcrylic, Canvas
- UntitledBy Friedel DzubasLocated in New York, NY1974 Acrylic on canvas mounted on board 6 x 13 in. Titled and dated, verso FramedCategory
1970s Color-Field Abstract Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Acrylic
- Study for "Hot Pursuit"By Friedel DzubasLocated in New York, NY1981 Magna acrylic on canvas mounted on board 5 7/8 x 15 in. (14.9 x 38.1 cm) Unique Titled and dated, /81 45" x 116" "HOT PURSUIT" on the reverse FramedCategory
1980s Color-Field Abstract Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Acrylic
- UntitledBy Friedel DzubasLocated in New York, NY1974 Acrylic on canvas mounted on board 7 x 6 in. Titled and dated, verso FramedCategory
1970s Color-Field Abstract Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Acrylic