Lot 131: LUKE GRAY (B. 1961)

HUMMOCK POND BEACH NANTUCKET AUGUST 14, '78

18 by 25 1/4 in. 45.7 by 64.1 cm

signed L Gray lower right and dated '78; also titled on the reverse

acrylic on canvas

NOTE

The writer Francine du Plessix Gray remembers the circumstances surrounding the sale of the above lot. "Luke Gray is my younger son. He's an artist, and showed an eerily precocious gift, and started having one-man shows in Philadelphia when he was still at U Penn, doing a major in philosophy and art history with Leo Steinberg. From 1974 to 1977 Cleve and I rented a house in Nantucket for the month of August, and Dick always came up to spend a week with us. That painting of Hummock Pond was painted on Nantucket when Luke was 16, the summer before he was entering his Senior year at Hotchkiss, and sold it to Dick (who saw it being painted on the beach) for $25.00, a nice sum then for a 16-year-old selling his first painting. A decade and a half later Luke showed with Gary Snyder when he had his gallery in Soho, and has done a few remarkable murals in the New York area." Also see note to lot 137.