Gail Gregg (born 1951) is an American mixed-media artist and journalist based in New York City.Landi, Ann. "Gail Gregg," ''ARTnews'', January 2008, p. 126.DiGiovanna, Rebecca. ''Blurring Boundaries: The Women of American Abstract Artists, 1936 – Present'', Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Ewing Gallery of Art & Architecture, 2018.''ARTnews''
Gail Gregg
Author. Retrieved February 12, 2025. Her work includes abstract painting, works on paper and objects, collage, photography and artist books.Landi, Ann. "Gail Gregg," ''ARTnews'', January 1999, p. 126–27.McClermont, Doug. "Gail Gregg," ''ARTnews'', December 2010, p. 111.Panero, James. "Gallery Chronicle," ''The New Criterion'', March 2016. She is best known for

encaustic painting Encaustic painting, also known as hot wax painting, is a form of painting that involves a heated wax medium to which colored pigments have been added. The molten mix is applied to a surface—usually prepared wood, though canvas and other mate ...

s and works on paper that transform everyday, ephemeral discards—scavenged shipping cardboard and crate lids, orphaned photo albums or library cards—into enduring works that emphasize a

minimalist In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...

approach to surface and pattern, subtle aesthetics, and the hand-made.Johnson, Ken
"Anne Connell, Gail Gregg – Bridgewater/Lustberg & Blumenfeld,"
''The New York Times'', June 1, 2001. Retrieved February 11, 2025.Korotkin, Joyce. "Gail Gregg and Anne Connell at Bridgewater/Lustberg & Blumenfeld," ''New York Art World'', Summer 2001, p. 16.Rankin, Lissa
''Encaustic Art: The Complete Guide to Creating Fine Art with Wax''
New York: Watson Guptill, 2010, p. 56–57, 64. Retrieved February 11, 2025. These intimate and repurposed artworks convey themes involving memory and reflection, transformation, humor, overlooked beauty, and contemporary consumerism and excess.Sheets, Hilarie M. "Gail Gregg," ''ARTnews'', October 2001, p. 173.''The Register Citizen''
"Torrington gallery features 3 artists in new show,"
September 9, 2015. Retrieved February 12, 2025. ''ARTnews'' critic Ann Landi wrote of the latter works, "The econstructions ask us to regard the dross surrounding us but Gregg's sensibility is one of gentle irony and understated elegance. Recycling hasn't looked this good since

Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" or "Bob" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combine painting, Combines (1954� ...

's 'Cardboards.'" Gregg's work belongs to the art collections of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

(MoMA),

The Phillips Collection The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips and Marjorie Acker Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the grandson of James H. Laughli ...

U.S. Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs o ...

and

Whitney Museum The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

.Metropolitan Museum of Art
Gail Gregg, ''Delicious''
Collection. Retrieved February 11, 2025.The Phillips Collection
Gail Gregg, ''Delicious''
Collection. Retrieved February 11, 2025.U.S. Department of State
Gail Gregg
Art in Embassies, Artists. Retrieved February 11, 2025. She has exhibited at institutions including the Baker Museum, Beach Museum of Art,

Mead Art Museum Mead Art Museum houses the fine art collection of Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Opened in 1949, the building is named after architect William Rutherford Mead (class of 1867), of the prestigious architectural firm McKim, Mead & Whi ...

Missoula Art Museum The Missoula Art Museum (MAM) is a contemporary art museum in Missoula, Montana. MAM was founded in 1975 as the Missoula Museum for the Arts and has been accredited by the American Alliance of Museums since 1987. History When the Missoula Publ ...

and Mulvane Art Museum.''Artis-Naples''
"Blurring Boundaries: The Women of American Abstract Artists, 1936–Present,"
Baker Museum Exhibitions. Retrieved February 3, 2025.Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art

exhibitions, 2010. Retrieved February 11, 2025.Russell, Gloria. "Artists examine the role of landscape," ''Sunday Republican'', December 14, 2003, p. H2.Missoula Art Museum
"Selections From American Abstract Artists,"
Exhibits, 2015. Retrieved February 3, 2025.Mulvane Art Museum. "Encaustic paintings by Philip Hershberger and Gail Gregg," ''Traditional Fine Arts Organization'', 2000. Retrieved May 4, 2014. Her writing has appeared in ''ARTnews'', ''The New York Times'' and ''Barron's'', among other publications.Gregg, Gail
"The Persistence of Memories,"
''ARTnews'', November 1, 2011. Retrieved February 12, 2025.Gregg, Gail

''The New York Times'', April 13, 1986. Retrieved February 12, 2025.Gregg, Gail
"Money talks,"
''The Guardian'', June 29, 2005. Retrieved February 12, 2025.

Early life and journalism

Gregg was born and raised in

Topeka, Kansas Topeka ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Shawnee County. It is along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, in northeastern Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2020 cen ...

. Her parents were Ann (née Wehe) and Thomas Merrill Gregg. She studied journalism at

Kansas State University Kansas State University (KSU, Kansas State, or K-State) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Manhattan, Kansas, United States. It was opened as the state's land-grant coll ...

, receiving a BA in 1972.Waller, Kathryn. "K-State alum's art show shows sense of loss," ''Manhattan Mercury'', 2010, p. A1–A2. In 1975, she earned an MA in journalism from

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC, UNC–Chapel Hill, or simply Carolina) is a public university, public research university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. Chartered in 1789, the university first began enrolli ...

.Tifft, Susan E
"Scion of the Times (w/Alex S. Jones),"
''The New Yorker'', July 18, 1999. Retrieved February 12, 2025.''Columbia University Record''
"Ten Journalists Receive Bagehot Fellowships,"
October 2, 1981. Retrieved February 12, 2025. The same year, she married

Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. (born September 22, 1951) is an American journalist. Sulzberger was the chairman of The New York Times Company from 1997 to 2020, and the publisher of ''The New York Times'' from 1992 to 2018, when he appointed his son ...

In 1981, she was awarded a

Walter Bagehot Walter Bagehot ( ; 3 February 1826 – 24 March 1877) was an English journalist, businessman, and essayist, who wrote extensively about government, economics, literature and race. He is known for co-founding the ''National Review'' in 1855 ...

Fellowship for economics and business journalism, at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

.American History of Business Journalism
"1975-2012 Knight-Bagehot fellows,"
Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing Archives. Retrieved February 12, 2025. After earning her MA, Gregg worked as a weekly newspaper editor and as a reporter for

The Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are distributed to its members, major ...

(AP) in Raleigh, NC. She later worked for

United Press International United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th ce ...

(UPI), in London and

Washington D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

In 1979, she moved to the ''

Congressional Quarterly ''Congressional Quarterly'', or ''CQ'', is an American publication that is part of the privately owned publishing company CQ Roll Call, which covers the United States Congress. ''CQ'' was formerly acquired by the U.K.-based Economist Group and ...

'' as its chief economics reporter. Gregg had an extensive freelance career, contributing articles to such publications as ''

Barron's ''Barron's'' (stylized in all caps) is an American weekly magazine and newspaper published by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corp, since 1921. Founded as ''Barron's National Financial Weekly'' in 1921 by Clarence W. Barron (1855–19 ...

'', ''

Institutional Investor An institutional investor is an entity that pools money to purchase securities, real property, and other investment assets or originate loans. Institutional investors include commercial banks, central banks, credit unions, government-linked ...

'', ''Investor's Daily'', ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'', ''

Venture Venture may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music *The Ventures, an American instrumental rock band formed in 1958 *"A Venture", 1971 song by the band Yes *''Venture'', a 2010 EP by AJR Games * ''Venture'' (video game), a 1981 arcade gam ...

'' and ''Working Woman''.Gregg, Gail
"The Angry Accountant: Eli Mason; Throwing the Book at the Big 8,"
''The New York Times'', June 22, 1986. Retrieved February 12, 2025.

Art career

Gregg shifted her career toward art in the 1980s, by mid-decade limiting her writing to occasional pieces for ''ARTnews''.Karabenick, Julie. "An Interview with Artist Gail Gregg," ''Geoform'', July 2006. In New York City, she studied at the

School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by Silas ...

, National Academy of Fine Arts and

New York Academy of Art The New York Academy of Art is a private art university in the Tribeca neighborhood of New York City. The academy offers a Master of Fine Arts degree with a focus on technical training and critical discourse, as well as a post-baccalaureate Cer ...

. During this period she produced figurative work and oil paintings of suburban scenes at night—primarily silhouettes and blocks of light—that edged toward abstraction. In the latter 1990s, Gregg turned to abstract paintings rooted in landscape, while earning an MFA at Vermont College in 1998. Solo exhibitions of this work took place at the Bridgewater/Lustberg & Blumenfeld (1998–2001) and Latin Collector (2003) galleries in New York City.Turner, Grady T. "Tony Bechara, Kathryn McAuliffe, and Gail Gregg," ''ARTnews'', September 2001, p. 137. Later solo shows were held at Luise Ross Gallery (2007–16, New York), the Beach Museum of Art (2010, Kansas), Five Points Galley (2015, Connecticut) and Loft Nota Bene (2018, Spain). She also appeared in group shows at

A.I.R. Gallery A.I.R. Gallery (Artists in Residence) is the first all female artists cooperative gallery in the United States. It was founded in 1972 with the objective of providing a professional and permanent exhibition space for women artists during a time ...

and the

Wichita Art Museum The Wichita Art Museum is an art museum located in Wichita, Kansas, United States. The museum was established in 1915, when Louise Caldwell Murdock’s Will which created a trust to start the Roland P. Murdock Collection of art in memory of he ...

, and in surveys such as "Dynamic Intervention" ( Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, 2013), and "Blurring Boundaries: Women of the American Abstract Artists 1936-Present" (

South Bend Museum of Art The South Bend Museum of Art is located in South Bend, Indiana. Founded in 1947, the museum features historical and contemporary art in five galleries, and offers instruction in its studios. Since 1987, the museum has been accredited by the Amer ...

, 2019; Baker Museum, 2021).South Bend Museum of Art
"Blurring Boundaries: The Women of American Abstract Artists, 1936–Present,"
Exhibitions. Retrieved February 3, 2025.

Artwork and reception

Gregg's art reflects the influence of abstract movements such as

minimalism In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...

, color field painting and the

Pattern and Decoration A pattern is a regularity in the world, in human-made design, or in abstract ideas. As such, the elements of a pattern repeat in a predictable manner. A geometric pattern is a kind of pattern formed of geometric shapes and typically repeated li ...

group, as well as

landscape painting Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction in painting of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, rivers, trees, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a cohe ...

.Korotkin, Joyce. "Gail Gregg," ''M Magazine'', June 2001.Lombardi, D. Dominick
"Waxworks,"
''NY Arts Magazine'', 2006. Retrieved February 12, 2025. In the latter 1990s she began working in encaustic, an age-old, process-oriented painting technique in which hot wax is impregnated with pigment. Critics note Gregg's encaustic work for its mining of the medium's potential for subtlety, rich color, soft luminous surfaces and tactile appeal.Zimmer, William

''The New York Times'', November 10, 2002, p. CN14. Retrieved February 11, 2025. Among other qualities, reviewers also note perceptual effects deriving from the paintings' deep surfaces and thickly painted sides, which flirt with illusionism and realism and shift in status between image and object. Between 1999 and 2005, Gregg exhibited small, emblematic encaustic-on-panel paintings with creamy, mottled surfaces that were compared to birthday cakes or thick ice. Many of these works evolved from sketches she made while airborne over the checkerboard, rural landscapes of the Great Plains, including her native Kansas (e.g., ''Carnation'', 2003). Often titled after small towns, these paintings were characterized by simple geometric (but not hard-edged) patterns, rich atmospheric effects, a gauzy density, and palettes in close tonal ranges that recalled classical colors of Italian landscape painting: russets, olive greens and ochres. In a representative description, critic Lilly Wei wrote that the painting ''Roza'' (2000) "suggests a textile pattern, a gameboard, an aerial view, things cultivated, crafted by the human hand, created by the human will and imagination … nddemonstrates a utopian belief in the sense of order, art's antidote to the chaos and terror of life."Wei, Lilly
"Geometry Reloaded,"
''NY Arts Magazine'', May/June 2005. Retrieved February 12, 2025. Alongside her landscape-influenced patterns, Gregg also introduced rhythmic, meditative stripes and grids that referenced Islamic tiles, using local color (e.g., ''Marrakesh'' and ''Fez'', 2000). In subsequent work, Gregg shifted her point of departure from the landscape to the detritus of a contemporary throwaway culture. In the process, she pushed her encaustic paintings toward relief sculpture, employing found industrial forms as supports: cardboard shipping materials, 19th-century loom cards, plastic packaging. In works like ''Riesling'' (2005) and ''Yellowtail'' (2007), cardboard wine bottle dividers were transformed into motifs recalling abstract Native American totems; in other paintings, loom card patterns yielded whimsical forms that ''ARTnews'' likened to a merging of

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...

and

Mark Rothko Mark Rothko ( ; Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz until 1940; September 25, 1903February 25, 1970) was an American abstract art, abstract painter. He is best known for his color field paintings that depicted irregular and painterly rectangular reg ...

. With the brightly colored relief ''One Way'' (2006), Gregg transcended modest material—protective cardboard packaging from a radio shipping box—to create one of her most sculptural pieces to date. She continued to work with encaustic and found materials into the early 2010s, often exploiting cardboard found on the street for its corrugated line patterns or leathery quality (e.g., ''Rosebud'' and ''Scored'', both 2012).Winiarski Deborah. "Encaustic and the Photographic Image," ''ProWax Journal'', January 1, 2017.DiGiovanna, Rebecca
''Blurring Boundaries: The Women of American Abstract Artists, 1936 – Present''
American Abstract Artists, 2018. Retrieved February 11, 2025. In the "Album" series (2008–10), Gregg channeled her own familial loss into drawings that explored abstraction and the power of visual autobiography by repurposing anonymous family photo albums and scrapbooks found at flea markets and junk shops. She removed the snapshots, leaving life-worn pages with binder holes, intact photo corners and occasional captions—then filled in the negative space left by the photos with graphite or muted shades of pastel that suggested echoes of the absent originals.Mayes, Katie. "K-State Alum's Exhibition, 'Gail Gregg: The Album Series', Coming to Beach Museum of Art", Kansas State University, January 14, 2010. Retrieved May 4, 2014. ''ARTnews'' critic Doug McClermont wrote that the austere black, gray or brown grids "were as entrancing as they were melancholic—devoid of actual human presence, yet saturated with mystery" and capable of "excavating universal emotions—the pain of loss, the frustration of gaps in memory—from the layers of history of unseen individuals." Gregg returned to the themes of consumerism and excess in two projects presented in her exhibition, "Fool's Gold" (2015). Her "Gilded Gyre Fragment" series (2015) consisted of constructivist cardboard packing forms that she gilded with metal leaf, creating mysterious, precious three-dimensional objects (i.e., "fool's gold") out of refuse. In a photocollage series, she culled and combined luxury magazine images, enhancing their over-the-top qualities, before mounting the final prints behind shiny acrylic to restore their original glossiness. In other and subsequent collage series, Gregg has created visual puns and surreal narratives—some with an ecological theme—by coupling vintage postcards and supermarket flyer material, abandoned library cards and photos, or tableaux of 1950s family life from magazines and other ephemera of the period.

Art collections and recognition

Gregg's work belongs to the public art collections of institutions including the Ewing Gallery (University of Nashville), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mulvane Art Museum, Museum of Modern Art, The Phillips Collection, University of Alberta,

and

. She has been awarded artist residencies by organizations including Arquetopia (Mexico), Escape to Create, the Jentel Foundation, the Julia and David White Colony (Costa Rica), Loft Nota Bene (Spain) and

Yaddo Yaddo is an artists' community located on a estate in Saratoga Springs, New York. Its mission is "to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment.". On March ...

.Escape to Create
Alumni
Retrieved February 12, 2025.Yaddo
Our Artists
Retrieved February 12, 2025. She is a member of

American Abstract Artists American Abstract Artists (AAA) was founded in 1937 in New York City, to promote and foster public understanding of abstract art. American Abstract Artists exhibitions, publications, and lectures helped to establish the organization as a major f ...

and Professional Women Photographers in New York.American Abstract Artists
Current Members
Retrieved February 11, 2025.Professional Women Photographers
Gail Gregg
Retrieved February 12, 2025.

Art writing and other activities

Gregg has written for ''ARTnews'' since the 1980s, contributing articles on artists including

Romare Bearden Romare Bearden (, ) (September 2, 1911 – March 12, 1988) was an American artist, author, and songwriter. He worked with many types of media including cartoons, oils, and collages. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bearden grew up in New York C ...

,Gregg, Gail
"Beardenmania!"
''ARTnews'', July 18, 2012. Retrieved February 12, 2025.

Carroll Dunham Carroll Dunham (born November 5, 1949) is an American painter. Working since the late 1970s, Dunham's career reached critical renown in the 1980s when he first exhibited with Baskerville + Watson, a decade during which many artists returned to p ...

,Gregg, Gail. "Blob Appeal," ''ARTnews'', January 11, 1999, p. 102–05.

Faith Ringgold Faith Ringgold (born Faith Willi Jones; October 8, 1930 – April 13, 2024) was an American painter, author, Sculpture, mixed media sculptor, performance artist, and Intersectionality, intersectional activist, perhaps best known for her Narrativ ...

Gregg, Gail. "The Ringgold Cycle," ''ARTnews'', June 1999, p. 112–15. and

Amy Sillman Amy Sillman (born 1955) is a New York-based visual artist, known for process-based paintings that move between abstraction and figuration, and engage nontraditional media including animation, zines and installation.Farago, Jason''The New York T ...

,Gregg, Gail. "Streams of Consciousness," ''ARTnews'', June 2001, p. 120–23. and on topics such as life drawing,Gregg, Gail
"Nothing Like the Real Thing,"
''ARTnews'', December 1, 2010. Retrieved February 12, 2025. museum access,Gregg, Gail
"A Welcoming Oasis,"
''ARTnews'', April 2, 2012. Retrieved February 12, 2025. art and Alzheimer's treatment and museum labels,Gregg, Gail
"Your Labels Make Me Feel Stupid,"
''ARTnews'', July 1, 2010. Retrieved February 12, 2025. among others. She has written catalogue essays on artists including

Yoshitaka Amano is a Japanese visual artist, character designer, illustrator, a scenic designer for theatre and film, and a costume designer. He began his career in 1967 at Tatsunoko Production working on anime such as '' Speed Racer'' and later became the c ...

, Karen Wilberding Diefenbach, Janet Filomeno, Christopher Pelley, Adam Straus and Richard Tsao.Lawtor, Kimi Imura and Gail Gregg
''Think Like Amano''
Ten Productions/Grey Entertainment, 1997. Retrieved February 12, 2025.Gregg, Gail
''Karen Wilberding Diefenbach: Silente''
2010. Retrieved February 12, 2025.Gregg, Gail and Adam Straus
''Adam Straus: Sublimis Interruptus''
New York: Nohra Haime Gallery, 2003. Retrieved February 12, 2025. For many years, Gregg served as president of Studio in a School, a non-profit organization that recruits artists to bring visual arts education to public schools and community centers from pre-K to the 12th grade.Wei, Lilly
"Studio in a School,"
''The Brooklyn Rail'', May 2020. Retrieved February 12, 2025.

References

External links

Gail Gregg official websiteGail Gregg
Art in Embassies biography
American Abstract ArtistsGail Gregg
''ARTnews'' author page {{DEFAULTSORT:Gregg, Gail UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media alumni Kansas State University alumni Vermont College of Fine Arts alumni Living people Sulzberger family American women journalists 21st-century American women 1951 births