Henry Percy Gray (1869–1952) was an American painter. Gray was born on October 3, 1869 into a
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
family with broad literary and artistic tastes. He studied at the
San Francisco School of Design
San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...
and later under
William Merritt Chase
William Merritt Chase (November 1, 1849October 25, 1916) was an American painter, known as an exponent of Impressionism and as a teacher. He is also responsible for establishing the Chase School, which later would become Parsons School of Design ...
in New York. While he had some early Impressionistic tendencies, his basic approach to composition and color was derived from the
Barbizon School
The Barbizon school of painters were part of an art movement towards Realism in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement of the time. The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870. It takes its nam ...
and
Tonalism
Tonalism was an artistic style that emerged in the 1880s when American artists began to paint landscape forms with an overall tone of colored atmosphere or mist. Between 1880 and 1915, dark, neutral hues such as gray, brown or blue, often dominat ...
, which were emphasized at the School of Design. He is primarily known for his romantic and lush depictions of the Northern California landscape.
Early years
Alexander Gray, Percy's father, was born in England and immigrated in 1867 with his Australian-born wife to San Francisco, where he became a successful insurance broker.
[ An online facsimile of the entire text of Vol. 1 is posted on the Traditional Fine Arts Organization website ().] As the byproduct of a childhood illness, Percy realized he had talents in art. From 1886 to 1888 he attended the California School of Design and studied under
Emil Carlsen, Virgil Williams,
Thomas Hill, and Oscar Kunath. His earliest documented exhibition was at the 1888 Mechanics’ Institute Fair where he displayed ''View of the Golden Gate''.
[.] From there he went on to become an assistant to a stockbroker and a quick-sketch illustrator for the ''
San Francisco Morning Call
''The San Francisco Call'' was a newspaper that served San Francisco, California. Because of a succession of mergers with other newspapers, the paper variously came to be called ''The San Francisco Call & Post'', the ''San Francisco Call-Bulletin ...
'' before obtaining a job with the ''
New York Journal
:''Includes coverage of New York Journal-American and its predecessors New York Journal, The Journal, New York American and New York Evening Journal''
The ''New York Journal-American'' was a daily newspaper published in New York City from 1937 t ...
''. In New York he studied at the
Art Students League
The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists.
Although artists may stud ...
. He was dispatched from New York to cover the
1906 San Francisco earthquake
At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity s ...
, but decided to remain in his native city where he would then take up his painting career.
A Painter in San Francisco
Gray's first pieces, headland seascapes, were exhibited in 1907 at the Sketch Club. Gray “first rose to prominence” through the sketches he made for the Henry K. Thaw murder trial which were sensationally reproduced in all the Hearst newspapers. From 1907 to 1914 his exhibited works at the
San Francisco Art Association were primarily scenes of Berkeley and Alameda oaks, marshes, eucalyptus groves, seascapes, and fields of California wildflowers.
These subjects would become signatures of his work. Originally Gray's works were oils; however, he eventually developed an allergy to oil paints, and switched to using watercolors as his primary medium. From early on the critics marveled at his ability to infuse realistic depictions of nature with a mystical and poetic quality. He was clearly applying the precepts of his mentor
William Merritt Chase
William Merritt Chase (November 1, 1849October 25, 1916) was an American painter, known as an exponent of Impressionism and as a teacher. He is also responsible for establishing the Chase School, which later would become Parsons School of Design ...
in arranging light and color.
In 1909 he moved his residence from
Alameda, California
Alameda ( ; ; Spanish for " tree-lined path") is a city in Alameda County, California, located in the East Bay region of the Bay Area. The city is primarily located on Alameda Island, but also spans Bay Farm Island and Coast Guard Island, as we ...
across the bay to
Burlingame, California
Burlingame () is a city in San Mateo County, California. It is located on the San Francisco Peninsula and has a significant shoreline on San Francisco Bay. The city is named after diplomat Anson Burlingame and is known for its numerous eucal ...
, which is about twenty miles south of San Francisco, where he maintained a studio. He lived with his widowed mother and siblings. For more than four decades he exhibited at museums and commercial galleries, some of which include the: Schussler Brothers Gallery of San Francisco (1909-1921); Rabjohn & Morcom Galleries of Oakland and San Francisco (1911-1920); Courvoisier Gallery of San Francisco (1911, 1931); Del Monte Art Gallery of Monterey (1907-1912, 1930); California Society of Etchers, San Francisco (1914); de Young Museum of San Francisco (1915-1916, 1925); Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco (1916); St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco (1918, 1922); Stanford University, Palo Alto (1918, 1921); Print Rooms of San Francisco (1920-1921);
Bohemian Club
The Bohemian Club is a private club with two locations: a city clubhouse in the Nob Hill district of San Francisco, California and the Bohemian Grove, a retreat north of the city in Sonoma County. Founded in 1872 from a regular meeting of jou ...
of San Francisco (1920-1949); Gump’s Galleries of San Francisco and Hawaii (1925-1926); Graves Gallery of San Francisco (1938-1939).
At the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition he won a bronze medal for his watercolor ''Out of the Desert, Oregon''.
[.] He traveled outside of California, including paintings expeditions to the Pacific Northwest and Arizona.
Later years
Having been a bachelor for 53 years, Gray surprised his friends by marrying. He and his bride, Leone Phelps, moved to
Carmel-by-the-Sea, California in the spring of 1923 and later that year they purchased the Sherman Rose House on the grounds of the Larkin Adobe in nearby
Monterey, California
Monterey (; es, Monterrey; Ohlone: ) is a city located in Monterey County on the southern edge of Monterey Bay on the U.S. state of California's Central Coast. Founded on June 3, 1770, it functioned as the capital of Alta California under bo ...
, where seascapes and cypress dominated his later works. Gray was very active in the Carmel art colony, often staying for several months at a time, and exhibiting with the
Carmel Arts and Crafts Club
The Carmel Arts and Crafts Club was an art gallery, clubhouse founded in 1905, by Elsie Allen, a former art instructor for Wellesley College. The club was located at Monte Verde Street in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, where the Golden Bough Playh ...
(1913, 1923) and the
Carmel Art Association (1927-1928, 1932-1943).
In 1939 the Grays sold their adobe and moved to San Francisco. Restless for the out-of-doors, Gray and his wife resettled in
San Anselmo, California
San Anselmo () is an incorporated town in Marin County, California, United States. San Anselmo is located west of San Rafael, at an elevation of 46 feet (14 m). It is located about north of San Francisco. The town is bordered by San Rafael t ...
at the base of
Mount Tamalpais
Mount Tamalpais (; ; Miwok: ''Támal Pájiṣ''), known locally as Mount Tam, is a peak in Marin County, California, United States, often considered symbolic of Marin County. Much of Mount Tamalpais is protected within public lands such as Moun ...
in 1941. He became a founding member of the conservative
Society for Sanity in Art (later renamed the Society of Western Artists), where he exhibited from 1939 to 1947 and received several awards.
[San Francisco Chronicle, 12 January 1947, p.19.] After ten years in
Marin County, California
Marin County is a county located in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 262,231. Its county seat and largest city is San Rafael. Marin County is across ...
his wife died and he returned to San Francisco. Gray died on October 10, 1952 from a heart attack.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gray, Percy
1869 births
1952 deaths
19th-century American painters
American male painters
20th-century American painters
Landscape artists
People from Burlingame, California
Artists from San Francisco
San Francisco Art Institute alumni
Tonalism
People from Monterey, California
19th-century American male artists
20th-century American male artists