Vincent van Gogh’s “Avenue of Pollard Birches and Poplars, March 1884,” a promised gift of Richard and Mary L. Gray to The Art Institute of Chicago.

Vincent van Gogh’s “Avenue of Pollard Birches and Poplars, March 1884,” a promised gift of Richard and Mary L. Gray to The Art Institute of Chicago.

The Art Institute of Chicago

Art Institute showcases drawings by figures including Degas, Cézanne, van Gogh, Picasso, Pollock

The works, spanning seven centuries, were donated by Chicago collectors Richard and Mary L. Gray and will be on view this weekend through May 10.

A small group of collectors and benefactors has made a huge impact on the Art of Institute of Chicago’s prints and drawings collection, including Mary Day Blake, Dorothy Braude Edinburg and Helen Regenstein.

Now, with an exhibition that runs Jan. 25-May 10, the museum celebrates two names that have been added to that rarefied list — Richard Gray, who founded his still-operating namesake gallery in 1963 and died in May 2018, and his wife Mary L. Gray.

‘Pure Drawing’

‘Pure Drawing: Seven Centuries of Art from the Gray Collection’


When: Jan. 25-May 10

Where: Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan Ave.

Tickets: Part of regular museum admission

Details: artic.edu


The couple gave 56 drawings to the museum and made promised gifts of 36 more, including major examples of the works of some of the most prominent artists of the past seven centuries — Peter Paul Rubens, François Boucher, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock.

Kevin Salatino, the Art Institute’s chair and curator of prints and drawings, calls the donation one of the most important the museum has ever received.

“I can talk about how great the department of prints and drawings is because of people like Richard,” Salatino says. “So we lament that Richard is no longer with us, but we celebrate what Richard did during his life and what he is continuing to do after his death. He was a great, great man.”

In a follow-up to a similar offering in 2010-11, the museum is presenting 101 of the 150 drawings in the Grays’ collection in the exhibition “Pure Drawing: Seven Centuries of Art from the Gray Collection,” opening this weekend. It was curated by Salatino and Suzanne Folds McCullagh, who formerly held his post and now is director of the Gray Collection Trust.

Mary and Richard Gray in 2008 with drawings from their collection.

Mary and Richard Gray in 2008 with drawings from their collection.

Dan Dry; Gray Chicago/New York

The human form recurs frequently in these works. But what ties them together more than anything else, Salatino says, is the consistently superlative artistry.

“There are great names in the show from Rubens to Picasso,” he says. “But there are also many names who would be obscure to nonspecialists. A great drawing is not necessarily always attached to a great name.”

Among the highlights:

  • Boucher’s “Study of a Draped Woman Leaning on a Pedestal” (1759-61), white and black chalk. “It almost feels like an abstraction,” Salatino says. “It’s all about the drapery and less about the figure. He gets completely consumed in the massiveness of this cascading drapery. It’s one of the great French drawings of the 18th century.”
Auguste Rodin. Nude Woman Standing, Seen from the Back with Her Hands on her Hips, 1898/1900.

Auguste Rodin, “Nude Woman Standing, Seen from the Back with Her Hands on her Hips, 1898/1900.”

The Art Institute of Chicago. Gift of Richard and Mary L. Gray

  • Auguste Rodin’s “Nude Woman Standing, Seen from the Back with Her Hands on Her Hips” (1898-1900), graphite with stumping, watercolor and pen and black ink with a light blue wash. “We had no good Rodin watercolors, and this is a truly great one,” Salatino says. Fake Rodin drawings were prevalent in the early 20th century, when the artist was hugely popular. Bbut this one has been verified as authentic. “And the other issue you have to be concerned about is condition because they are often quite faded,” according to Salatino. “And this one is not.” 
  • Wassily Kandinsky’s “Untitled” (ca. 1915), watercolor. This colorful, semi-abstract work was created during an unsettled time in the artist’s life, shortly before the Russian Revolution. “We had no great Kandinsky from this most important moment,” Salatino says. “This was a great favorite of our director, James Rondeau.”
Wassily Kandinsky’s “Untitled,” c. 1915, a gift of Richard and Mary L. Gray to The Art Institute of Chicago in memory of Buddy Mayer.

Wassily Kandinsky’s “Untitled,” c. 1915, a gift of Richard and Mary L. Gray to The Art Institute of Chicago in memory of Buddy Mayer.

The Art Institute of Chicago

  • Picasso’s “The Artist and Model” (July 24, 1933), watercolor and pen and black ink. This is part of what McCullagh calls an “incredible string” of Picasso drawings in the collection. The work was consigned twice to the Gray Gallery, according to partner Paul Gray, and his father “couldn’t pass it up” the second time. “It’s one of the best subjects of the artist from one of the most renowned periods of his career,” he says.

Richard and Mary Gray got married in 1953. They acquired a few artworks early on but didn’t begin seriously collecting until years later. According to McCullagh, the earliest drawing in their collection — Georges Seurat’s “Academic Male Nude” (1877) was purchased in 1968. “It was the standard by which he measured all the other drawings,” she says.

Though Richard Gray consulted with his wife, whose primary interest is ancient art, he was the driving force behind the collection. Drawings were his preferred medium in part because they reveal the artist’s hand in a direct way.

“His interest in drawings was partly that they were overlooked by so many collectors,” Paul Gray says, “and he could get the best quality within a budget that he felt capable of. He wanted to feel like he was getting the best of an artist’s work.”

Richard Gray was a longtime supporter of the Art Institute and consulted with curators in the prints and drawings department as he built the collection. In 2004, when he joined the Art Institute’s board, he began to seriously think of donating the bulk of the drawings to the museum.

But Paul Gray says his father couldn’t part with the works until the two of them met about four years ago with Rondeau.

“He was deeply moved by the Art Institute’s interest in his collection,” Paul Gray says. “I’ve never seen him more emotional than that.”

François Boucher’s “Study of a Draped Woman Leaning on a Pedestal, 1759/61” is part of the “Pure Drawing: Seven Centuries of Art from the Gray Collection” exhibition.

François Boucher’s “Study of a Draped Woman Leaning on a Pedestal, 1759/61” is part of the “Pure Drawing: Seven Centuries of Art from the Gray Collection” exhibition.

The Art Institute of Chicago

Paul Gray and his siblings planned to be at the opening. The museum arranged a special dinner for Mary Gray.

“It’s very gratifying for me and my brother and sister to see the interest that they have taken in this collection,” Paul Gray says. “Probably more than anything, it was the thing that occupied [his father] throughout his mature adult life. And it is the thing that he was most passionate about.”

Giuseppe Porta’s “Bearded Man with his Right Arm Raised,” 1562/64, is part of the “Pure Drawing: Seven Centuries of Art from the Gray Collection” exhibition.

Giuseppe Porta’s “Bearded Man with his Right Arm Raised,” 1562/64, is part of the “Pure Drawing: Seven Centuries of Art from the Gray Collection” exhibition.

The Art Institute of Chicago

Kyle MacMillan is a freelance writer.

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