Richard Gray

dies at 89.

Richard Gray, a Chicago-based art dealer and philanthropist

who became a leading figure on the international art scene,

died at his home May 16, peacefully, in his sleep.

A man of wide-ranging taste whose interests included antiquities

and African art, Gray opened his eponymous gallery in 1963.

Focusing initially on works on paper by both contemporary artists

and noted 20th century modernists, he began to offer paintings

and sculpture by Jules Olitski, Morris Louis, Louise Nevelson, and

Hans Hofmann, among others. In time, the gallery came to be

recognized internationally as a key purveyor of 20th-century art

to museums and prominent private collectors with a roster that

went on to included David Hockney, Willem de Kooning, Roy

Lichtenstein, Jim Dine, Alex Katz, Agnes Martin, Jaume Plensa,

Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, David Smith, and many others.

The business continues under the direction of his son Paul, and

partners Andrew Fabricant and Valerie Carberry, with two

galleries in Chicago and a gallery on Madison Avenue in New York

City.

A lifelong Chicagoan Richard Gray was born December 30, 1928

on the city’s south side. One of seven children, he was the son of

Edward Gray — a Russian-Polish immigrant who owned a

construction services company and Pearl Winehouse, a Chicago

native. After graduating from Hyde Park High School and

assuming he would join his father in business, Gray enrolled as an

engineering student the University of Illinois’ newly opened

campus on Navy Pier. But after a semester, he transferred to the

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he studied

architecture. He interrupted his studies there to join the US Air

Force and was stationed in Europe.

Gray returned to Chicago in 1952 and within months met Mary

Kay Lackritz — a recent Bryn Mawr graduate — on a blind date.

In a 2007 interview with James McElhinney for the Archives of

American Art, Gray recalled the impact the Lackritz home had on

him. “I saw the residence of an obviously educated, cultured

family,” he said, recalling a living room with two pianos, a cello,

walls of books and most importantly, paintings by Miro,

Kandinsky and Jackson Pollock. “I was in a household that spoke

to me in a way that I never had experienced before.” The couple

married in March 1953.

In those early post-war years, Gray worked for his father, first at a

phonographic manufacturing company and then at a summer

resort he had established in Michigan. The idea to open a gallery

came from his friend, artist and critic Harry Bouras, whom Gray

had invited to exhibit at the resort in the summer of 1963. Over

the years, Gray told McElhinney, “I was developing an interest in

visual arts, and I would go to art shows, street fairs, and every

opportunity, you know, to look at things visual.”

With a small space rented at 155 East Ontario Street in Chicago,

Gray set off for New York with $25,000 to assemble an inventory

for his new venture. His first purchases included a de Kooning

collage, an India ink drawing by Arshile Gorky, and a Léger, the

latter acquired from André Emmerich. In a 2008 interview, Gray

remarked, “I went into business with the idea that I would see

how it worked out. I don’t think that I thought there was any

likelihood I would spend my life doing it. But as it turned out I

was pretty good at it and had some breaks.”

Over the years, Gray and his son continued to expand the gallery’s

stable, welcoming many new artists including, just recently,

Theaster Gates. A champion of Spanish artist Jaume Plensa, Gray

offered the sculptor his first significant show in the United States

and the gallery was instrumental in securing a commission for the

artist in Chicago’s Millennium Park.

A past president of the Art Dealers Association of America and the

Chicago Art Dealers Association, Gray was a trustee of the Art

Institute of Chicago, Chicago Humanities Festival, Chicago

Symphony Orchestra, The Goodman Theatre, WTTW, The

Newberry Library, and the Smart Museum at the University of

Chicago, among many other institutions and organizations.

As Vice Chairman of the Friends of the Farnsworth House, he

played a key role in the preservation of the Mies can der Rohe

masterpiece. In 2008, The Art Institute of Chicago opened the

Richard and Mary L. Gray Wing for prints and drawings with

selections from the couple’s personal collection, which comprises

Renaissance- and Baroque-era treasures by Guercino, Tiepolo,

and Rubens; 19th-century works by Delacroix, Degas, and Seurat;

and pieces from such 20th-century artists as Picasso, Matisse, and

Miró. 2013 marked the founding of The Richard and Mary L.

Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry at the University of Chicago.

For a man who masterfully helped many individuals form

impressive private collections, Gray was dismissive of how he

came to assemble his own personal holdings, insisting that the art

in his home was “accumulated”, not collected. As he once told the

New Yorker’s Lawrence Weschler, “At no time…had I ever thought

we were collecting, nor had I ever stopped to seriously compare

myself to the sorts of people I worked with all the time as a

dealer.”

He was equally clear-eyed about his life and career. In his

interview for the Archives of American Art a decade ago, he

stated, “The reality is, sooner or later — but not so much later —

it's all going to be all over for me, and I accept that. I know it. It

doesn't change one iota my ability to continue, every day, to be

active and involved and committed, to gain from everything

around me, what people are doing — artists, musicians, family.”

In addition to his wife of 65 years, Mary, he is survived by his

three children; Paul Gray (Dedrea A. Gray) of Chicago, Jennifer

Gray (Scott Wilkerson) of Evanston IL, Harry Gray (Katrine Keyes

Gray) of El Sobrante, CA and, five grandchildren, Emily (Mark

Wiley), Ian, Caitlin, Asia and Vienna, one great-grandchild,

Maeven, and his brothers, Robert, Jupiter, FL and Melvin (Sue),

Chicago. A memorial service will be announced at a later date.

Donations in his honor will be gratefully received by any of the

many Chicago civic and charitable organizations supported by the

Gray family.