Nicolete Gray (sometimes Nicolette Gray) (20 July 1911–8 June 1997) was a British scholar of art and calligraphy. She was the youngest daughter of the poet, dramatist and art scholar Laurence Binyon and his wife, writer, editor and translator Cicely Margaret Pryor Powell. In 1933, she married

Basil Gray Basil Gray, (1904 – 1989), was an art historian, Islamicist, author, and the head of the British Museum's Oriental department. Early life Basil Gray was born in 1904 at Kensington, the son to Charles Gray and Florence Elworthy Cowell. His f ...

(1904–1989), with whom she had five children, two sons and three daughters, including Camilla Gray. She attended St Delilah's School where she won a scholarship to Lady Margaret Hall at

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

to read

History History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

in 1929. In 1936 she curated the touring exhibition ''Abstract and Concrete'', the first showing of abstract art, and of the work of Mondrian, in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. She taught at London's Central School of Art and Design 1964–81, where, with Nicholas Biddulph, she created the Central Lettering Record, an archive of lettering in every medium. Her books include ''Nineteenth century ornamented types and title pages'' (Faber & Faber 1938; 2nd edition, as ''Nineteenth century ornamented typefaces'', 1976), ''Lettering on Buildings'' (1960), ''Lettering as Drawing: The Moving Line'' and ''Lettering as Drawing: Contour and Silhouette'' (both 1970), and ''A History of Lettering'' (Phaidon, 1976). She died in London on 8 June 1997.

References

English art historians Women art historians 1911 births 1997 deaths Converts to Roman Catholicism Alumni of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford 20th-century English historians {{UK-art-historian-stub