Cleve Gray

Cleve Gray graduated Summa Cum Laude from Princeton University, where he studied painting and Far Eastern Art. Like many of his generation, he joined the United States Army during World War II, serving in England, France and Germany. After the war, he remained in Paris on the GI Bill, where he furthered his study of painting. During the 1960s he formed a close friendship with Barnett Newman. It was during this time that he experienced an artistic metamorphosis, dissolving his earlier cubist compositions in a sea of distilled color. This dramatic body of work marked the beginning of an artistic meditation that would last for over 40 years. The rigors of French modernism, the ethos of Abstract Expressionism and the calligraphic restraint of eastern art commingle with astounding affect.

Gray has exhibited at a number of important institutions including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, The Brooklyn Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. 

Courtesy of Loretta Howard Gallery