Cleve Gray

Cleve Gray, Conjunction #98, acrylic on canvas, 1976

1976

"Ascensions #4" by Cleve Gray, is an abstract painting made of acrylic on canvas from 1997. The painting contains rich fields of saturated color punctuated by calligraphic gestures a...

"Hopkin's Comet" by Cleve Gray, is an abstract painting made of acrylic on canvas from 1990. The painting contains rich fields of saturated color punctuated by calligraphic gestures ...

This Cleve Gray painting, titled "Perne #7", contains rich fields of saturated color punctuated by calligraphic gestures and sweeping brushstrokes. Known for his confident and personal vision of color-based abstraction, Gray’s subtly nuanced paintings vacillate between explosive energy and contained reflection. Cleve Gray (b. 1918 New York City, NY, d. 2004 Hartford, CT) graduated with a degree in art and archeology from Princeton University in 1940. While serving in World War II and afterwards, Gray traveled extensively with significant exposure to European art and artists. His earliest inspiration ranged from his Princeton thesis on Chinese Yuan Dynasty...

"Conjunction #199" by Cleve Gray is an abstract painting made of acrylic on canvas from 1976. The piece contains rich fields of saturated color punctuated by calligraphic gestures an...

This work on paper by Cleve Gray contains rich fields of saturated color punctuated by calligraphic gestures and sweeping brushstrokes. "Untitled" from 1999 consist of acrylic on Ar...

This is an abstract acrylic painting by Nicolas Carone titled 'Cavalcade,' which is from 2009, the period of the painter's life. 'Cavalcade' is a beautiful composition of splashed black and white paint. The painting is an excellent scale and is very dynamic. Carone was one of the last surviving Abstract Expressionist painters known for his figurative style based on abstract principles. The figure acts as the foundation that shapes his lyrical brushstrokes, layered drips and delicate washes. His later works successfully integrate the classical figurative tradition of his early training with the spontaneous and instinctual painting process of his AbEx contemporaries and friends such as Jackson Pollock, Sam Francis, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning and Conrad Marca-Relli. Nicholas Carone is best known for his association with the New York School of Abstract Expressionists who came to prominence in the 1950s. He was born to Italian immigrants in Manhattan’s Lower East Side in 1917, the eldest of seven children. He was raised in Hoboken, New Jersey and began attending art school on the nights and weekends at age eleven at the Leonardo da Vinci Art School in Manhattan. After high school, he studied at the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design and with Hans Hofmann before serving in World War II. In 1947 he won the prestigious Prix de Rome and spent three years in Italy on the G.I. Bill starting in 1948. In 1949, he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship. In Rome, living on Via Margutta, he met Alberto Burri, Conrad Marc-Relli and the surrealist Matta...

CLEVE GRAY Floating Red, 1990 Acrylic on canvas 60 x 60 inches

Signed, dated , and titled verso: Gray - '90 / "Air Things Wear that Build This World" / 60 x 60 / acrylic

Cleve Gray Ceres 1, 1966 Greece Series Acrylic on canvas 25 1/2 x 19 3/4 inches

Cleve Gray Reverse Drawing 1 (blue), 1966 Reverse Drawing Series Mixed media on paper 19 3/4 x 25 1/2 inches

Loretta Howard Gallery is pleased to present a selection of important paintings by Cleve Gray from the 1970’s. Wrought in deeply saturated fields of color and marked with calligraphic brushwork, the paintings on display exemplify the artist’s mature style. They highlight the artist’s lifelong affinity for Japanese and Chinese art and philosophy. His familiarity with Asian cultures began at Princeton University where he studied Far Eastern Art under George Rowley and wrote his thesis on the landscape painting of the Yuan dynasty. The resulting paintings illustrate a synthesis of western and eastern art historical conventions as Gray infused the radical sensibilities of Abstract Expressionism with Zen quietude. Also on view are a selection of hanging scrolls collected by the artist during his visits to China and Japan. These scrolls, which highlight a meditative approach, also contain an intensity and immediacy of action that Gray sought in his own work. In an essay written in the accompanying catalog, Luke Gray...

Signed, dated , and titled verso: Gray - '90 / "Air Things Wear that Build This World" / 60 x 60 / acrylic

CLEVE GRAY Floating Red, 1990 Acrylic on canvas 60 x 60 inches

Cleve Gray Ceres 1, 1966 Greece Series Acrylic on canvas 25 1/2 x 19 3/4 inches

Cleve Gray Conjugations, 1975 Vermont Series Mixed media on paper 14 1/2 x 22 1/2 inches each

PROVENANCE: Ensign Bickford Aerospace Corp, Simsbury, CT Threnody (1973-74) is a 250-foot-wide site-specific painting created by Cleve Gray for the opening of the Neuberger Museum of Art.  At that time, college students across the country were demonstrating against the conflict in Vietnam, a war that they felt to be unjust and inhumane. An active anti-war supporter himself, Gray saw this as an opportunity to express his hope for humanity’s spiritual and emotional healing. Threnody is a lament for the dead on both sides of the war. Although the theme of Threnody was conditioned by current events, Gray sought a more reconciliatory image and mood. Somber grounds of red, black, green and violet delineate the four walls in the space that he envisioned as a cathedral.  Tall vertical forms engaged in a “dance of death and life...

Abstract painting wherein a calligraphic brushstroke delineates a mountaintop.