Jack Lorimer Gray

From childhood, Jack Lorimer Gray rendered images of the sea, but never once considered he would become one of North America's greatest maritime artists. After an art-filled youth, Gray earned a scholarship to the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and subsequently, entry to Ecole des Beaux Arts in Montreal. Jack Gray cut a large swath in the marine art community during his career. Well known for his paintings of Dorymen fishing, dramatic paintings of ships in heavy seas, and, when he lived in New York in the mid-1950’s, scenes of New York’s historic waterfront.

Born in 1927 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Jack L. Gray was an only child who held a fascination with ships and loved to draw boats. His skills took him to the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. In between, Gray spent several years aboard dory-fishing schooners in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, where he produced a large portfolio of notes, sketches and photographs. Gray’s first solo exhibition was in Chester, Nova Scotia, in 1948, where he picked up multiple commissions. In the mid-1950s, he moved to New York City where he first used the cantankerous flat-bottomed skiff he called the S.O.B. Gray “lived a true artist life.” His painting “Dressing Down, the Gully” was presented to President John F. Kennedy in 1962 and increased interest in his work (see photo to left). Gray last moved to West Palm Beach, Florida, where he lived aboard a boat. He stayed in the Sunshine State for the remainder of his life, frequently sailing to the Bahamas.

President John F. Kennedy looks at his painting "Dressing Down the Gully," by Jack Gray; in the White House, Washington, D.C., 1962.