Frederick Gladstone Gray

This painting should be familiar
to anyone who has been a a member of the Palette and Chisel
over the past 80 years.

It was done by Frederick Gladstone Gray (1881 - ?)







You should also recognize this one
even if the reflections off its glass frame
make it difficult to see.







The subject is another member of the club, Leo Marzolo.

The P&C newsletter indicates
that it was exhibited in the
36th Annual Exhibition
(which must date to something like 1931,
and then both paintings
were exhibited in the 1945
50th Anniversary Show
at the Art Institute.


The newsletter also tells us that:

By 1932 Gray's debt to Joe (the cook) was more than $150, and the club was forced to consult with its attorney, Charles Selleck, about the "legal procedure necessary to attach money Mr. Gray would realize from pictures in hands of Chicago Galleries Association for the purpose of satisfying the debt he owes Joe Haynes, the Club caretaker." Gray's paintings didn't sell, and the club booted him out in 1932.

Sources on the internet tell us that:

"Frederick Galdstone Gray (American, 1881-1930) was a California/Missouri artist known for figure, genre and portrait painting. He studied at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts and in Paris at Academie Julian under Jean Paul Laurens. Except for 1909 when he resided in New York City, he was a resident of his native city until about 1917.


But obviously they are mistaken about when he died.







Here are some of his other paintings