shapes through abstraction. This often involved balancing one colour and one form against another. Gray also acquired for her library Neo Plasticisme by Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) who advocated these ideas and envisaged in his art the formulation of a universal ideal of happiness.79 He considered himself to be the prophet and his essay Neo Plasticisme was dedicated to its ideals. Having read this document Gray established her first contact with the De Stijl architects after she displayed in Amsterdam in 1922. Gray saw their work at the 1923 De Stijl Architecture Exhibition at Léonce Rosenburg’s Galerie l’Effort Moderne. It was to be of seminal importance to her career and ultimately led to friendship with many of the key members of the movement. Mondrian advocated in his publication that ‘It is not enough that form be reduced to its quintessence, that the proportion of the whole work be harmonious; on the contrary, the entire work must be only the plastic expression of relationships and must disappear as particularity’. For Gray’s De Stijl-inspired artworks she set out to create a pure art composed of pure elements where straight lines, angles and bold graphic designs came into play. Gray produced a body of work with asymmetrical, rectangular grids lines of varying widths. In comparison to her earlier work she produced large-scale gouaches playing with various ideas, using different colour schemes or smudging the edges of her compositions. One brown and beige large gouache clearly demonstrates ideas from the De Stijl, however, Gray’s painterly effects are apparent as she uses washes not blocks of colour.80 Another large gouache painted in bold red and pink dating from 1925 consists of pure geometric shapes, its overall design being highly effective.81 It is a second variation of another gouache which Gray had worked on, where she had decided to enlarge the central abstract motif and change the palette.82
3.21 Brown and beige gouache, 1925, paper, paint © NMI
During the 1930s and 1940s Gray created a number of gouaches and artworks that were not informed by any one particular art movement. These included a body of work with a speckled ground in a variety of colours which display her more painterly techniques.83 Many of these have a dark black or green ground with speckled forms that extend inward either horizontally or vertically.84 By mid-1935 to the early 1940s this speckled painterly aspect of Gray’s artwork at times took over the entire picture plane.85 Sometimes the speckled effect took on specific shapes like jigsaws – which are cut-outs mounted on card and then deliberately placed on the gouache.86 Initially the colours and motifs used in the collage elements on such backgrounds were vivid in colour.87 By the mid to late 1940s Gray’s palette became increasingly monochromatic and at times these gouaches were indebted to the artwork of the American Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) and others within that movement. The way in which Pollock did not obfuscate technique in his drip paintings and the way he textured the canvas, building up layers of paint through the use of various pigments and methodologies intrigued Gray. But she was later quite critical of this movement in letters to her niece sent during the 1960s. Her choice of palette and this Pollock-type speckled effect occurs in a body of work which Gray produced from 1940-1949.88
3.22 Speckled blue gouache with blue abstract motifs, late 1930s, paper, paint © NMI
Certain themes are also apparent in her artwork. During the early 1920s nautical themes become apparent. One gouache has an abstract fish motif, as if it was an imprint, and details include its mouth and upper and lower fins.89 Fish appeared in Gray’s work as early as 1916, and in Vogue magazine, August 1917, a sand-grey lacquer table top decorated with white fish which dart about in a black pool was shown.90 Gray also did a carpet design of the Japanese koi fish and titled it Poissons which was completed between 1913 and 1917.91 With another green, white and blue collage and gouache Gray created an underwater effect.92 The colour and palette which she uses in this collage resemble another which she produced during the same period.93
At times Gray’s palette is unconventional, evading the use of bold colour she opted in some of her pastel work soft browns, blues and pale oranges. In one artwork entitled Hantage Gray has treated the motifs in a sfumato technique, smudging the outline of what appears to be a still life.94 Another unfinished abstract collage of the early 1930s has a ground in a beige colour with two superimposed stripes which run vertically to the left and right in a deep burnt orange and brown colour.95
3.23 Hantage, 1930s, paper, crayon, chalk, paint © NMI
During the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s Gray worked on monotypes, collages, and bas-reliefs. She constantly challenged herself and felt that artists who had focused on decorative art had not always succeeded because ‘Decorative Art which ought not to be decorative but means making new forms from old and sometimes new materials; pottery, cork aggloméré, straw, inventing’.96 Gray returned to the various styles and movements which had influenced her. In one particular collage she paid homage to Eduardo Chillida (1924-2002), a Spanish sculptor noted for his abstract, monumental pieces. His first exhibition in France was in Paris in 1950. He continued to have solo exhibitions in the Galerie Maeght and the Galerie Bertram in Paris during the 1950s and 1960s. Using an original poster as the medium on which to begin her design, Gray returned to her sources of Analytical Cubism, painting out the lettering and then stencilling it in the corner.97 As with many of Gray’s experiments it remained incomplete.
André Breton (1896-1966) and Louis Aragon (1897-1982) published the Surrealist Manifesto in 1924 and a second in 1930. Gray had a copy of the first edition and had dealings with both men through an interior design commission which she received from Jacques Doucet in Paris. At that time she socialised in their circles, having many mutual friends in common.98 The group was led by Breton, Paul Éluard (1895-1952) and Pierre Reverdy (1889-1960). Surrealism was concerned with visualising the inharmonious, dissonant side of human existence. Surrealists proclaimed the significance of the unconscious mind, which Gray was deeply interested in – states of hallucination; dream, intoxication and ecstasy which Breton stated were just as real as situations from everyday life. Gray’s interest in dreams also enticed her to purchase No.63 Visages du Monde, 15 May 1939 with an edition devoted to Le Rêve dans L’Art et La Littérature (The Dream in Art and Literature).99
The
