The Narrows, From the Belt Parkway, New York, 1960
by Jack Lorimer Gray (1927–1981)24⅛ x 36⅛ inches
Signed and dated lower left: JACK L. GRAY 60.; on stretcher bar: THE NARROWS–FROM BELT PARKWAY NY
Provenance
Private collection, Maryland
Note: Jack Lorimer Gray depicts the tidal strait, known as the Narrows, which separates Staten Island and Brooklyn. The channel connects the Upper New York Bay and Lower New York Bay and is considered the gateway into New York City harbors. Gray includes several vessels passing through the waters.
Artist Biography
Best known for his marine and harbor paintings, Jack Lorimer Gray was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and studied at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. After two years, he left school and went on sketching trips both alone and with former classmate Joseph Purcell, living above a fish store. By the mid-1940s, his interest in marine subjects was so strong that rather than drawing the figures in his life drawing classes at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, he instead sketched a boat hull. He went on to spend several seasons with a Nova Scotia dory-fishing fleet,
