Jack L. Gray

Jack Lorimer Gray (April 28, 1927 — September, 1981) was a Canadian artist, known particularly for marine art.

[[File:|right|]]Jack L. Gray was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia on April 28, 1927, the only child of civil engineer Samuel William Gray. Growing up in the South End of Halifax, he was a pupil at Tower Road School. As a schoolboy young Jack loved drawing pictures, especially those of ships at sea, and his talent was recognized and encouraged by Sir Edmund Wyly Grier. By the end of World War II he was a student at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) during the tenure of Donald Cameron MacKay. At the art college, Gray was mentored by several painters, including Elizabeth Styring Nutt and David Whitzman. It was here that the young Gray met fellow artists Earl Bailly and Joseph Purcell. In the summer of 1945 Gray boarded with the Young family of East Ironbound island and made many sketches of island life which subsequently were turned into large paintings. After two years of studies at NSCAD, he left the school and went on sketching trips both alone and also with Purcell, his former classmate. During the summer of 1947 the two artists rented the loft of a fish store at New Harbour, Nova Scotia and made many drawings and paintings. Gray traveled briefly to Montreal in 1948 to take a life drawing course from Arthur Lismer at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Gray was observed sketching a boat hull in the class, and the instructor commented that, given that a future course might be offered in boat drawing, Gray likely would then be found drawing a nude. Jack's evident lack of interest in Lismer's classroom sessions soon led to private discussions between the two artists, which proved fruitful. In those years Gray also spent several seasons at sea with the last of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia's dory-fishing schooner fleet, and amassed a portfolio of sketches, notes and photographs.

...
Wikipedia