Basil Gray Explained

Basil Gray
Birth Date:1904
Birth Place:Kensington, London, England
Death Place:Oxford, England
Known For:Art historian
Occupation:Head of British Museum’s Oriental department

Basil Gray, (1904–1989), was an English art historian, Islamicist, author, and the head of the British Museum's Oriental department.

Early life

Basil Gray was born in 1904 at Kensington, the son to Charles Gray and Florence Elworthy Cowell. His father was a Royal Army Medical Corps surgeon. He attended Bradfield College and in the 1920s studied at New College, Oxford.[1]

Career

Following graduation in 1927 Gray travelled to the Schönbrunn Palace and Osterreichisches Museum in Vienna to view Mughal painting. While in Vienna he studied under Josef Strzygowski, and developed a friendship with Otto Demus, art historian and Byzantinist.[1] Following this he worked with art historian David Talbot Rice at the British Academy excavations of the palace of the Byzantine emperors in Constantinople.[2]

On his return to England he joined in 1930 the Sub-Department of Oriental Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, under Laurence Binyon, in 1940 becoming the Department's deputy keeper, and in 1946, its keeper. Under his tenure he managed employment intake, collections and acquisitions, and curated special exhibitions using the Department's own collections, and those from public and private sources.[1] [2]

The archeologist Roman Ghirshman invited Gray to Iran in 1951, to study Ville Royale excavations at Susa. Further visits to Iran included Iranian Institute's and British Council lectures at Isfahan, Tabriz, and Mashhad, and for Shiraz he urged, as a member of the Iranian Institute governing body, investigations of the dye trade between the Persian Gulf and China.[2]

He became the temporary Director of the British Museum in 1968, and retired in 1969. During retirement his focus turned to the relationship between Chinese ceramics and Persian painting. He became Vice-President of the British Institute of Persian Studies in 1969, chaired the Sixth International Congress of Iranian Art and Archaeology at Oxford in 1972, and became President of the Societas Iranologica Europara in 1983.[2] As an art historian Gray wrote exhibition guides and books on Orientalism and Islamic Art.

A curatorial position in the Department of Asia at the British Museum is named after Gray.[3]

Personal life

In 1933 Basil Gray married the calligrapher Nicolete Mary Binyon (1911–1997), daughter of Laurence Binyon, poet, art scholar and dramatist.[4] There were five children from the marriage[5] including the art historian Camilla Gray.[6] Basil Gray died on 10 June 1989.

Publications

See also

Obituaries and memorials

Notes and References

  1. http://www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/grayb.htm Gray, Basil
  2. Pinder-Wilson Ralph, (1989, Obituary - Basil Gray 1904-1989, Iran (journal), Vol. 27, British Institute of Persian Studies, pp.5-6. Retrieved 10 March 2016
  3. https://www.britishmuseum.org/our-work/departments/asia Department of Asia
  4. Hatcher, John (2004); "Binyon, (Robert) Laurence (1869–1943)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press
  5. Barker, Nicolas; "Obituary: Nicolete Gray". The Independent, 12 June 1997. Retrieved 10 March 2016
  6. News: Camilla Gray Prokofiev, Historian of Russian Art. January 26, 1972. The New York Times. 2018-08-28. en.
  7. 4300674. Centenary Bibliography of Basil Gray. Iran. 42. 235–245. Gray. Edmund. 2004. 10.2307/4300674 .

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