William Gray, 89, 'painting was his life'

By RICK BADIE

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

William Gray spent many hours of many days at work painting or drawing. So to watch an amateur photographer like his son create a visual with the push of a button riled his artistic intellect.

“I would go out and snap a picture, and he thought that was too easy,” said Kendall Gray of Mountain Park in Fulton County. “He felt photography was too easy.”

In 1949, the Atlanta native earned an art degree from the Atlanta College of Art. He taught classes in art history and figure drawing at the High Museum of Art. And while he always had a studio, his living came from working for decades as a machinist at Lockheed Martin.

Still, “painting was his life, really,” his son said. “He didn’t sell a lot of paintings but he sold some. He just never really pushed his art. I would say he was a frustrated artist.”

William Robert Gray, 89, of Atlanta, died Saturday from complications of congestive heart failure at Vitas Hospice in Stockbridge. The funeral is 3 p.m. Monday in the Arlington Chapel of H.M. Patterson & Son Funeral Home in Sandy Springs.

Mr. Gray credited Florence Gray, his late mother, with nurturing his passion for oil painting and drawing. In return, the World War II veteran shared a love of the arts with his son and daughter, Kathryn Gray Wallace of Dacula. He painted and drew with them when they were children.

Today, Mrs. Wallace, teaches music at a Gwinnett County public school. In 2000 and 2001, she served as orchestra chairman for the Georgia Music Educators Association. She credits her father for her artistic aptitude.

“I love all the arts,” she said, “but he definitely instilled that appreciation in us. He was the eternal student.”

After serving time in the Navy, Mr. Gray enrolled in the Atlanta College of Art. There he befriended, among others, William “Bill” Hendrix, the late artist and instructor who opened a high-quality art school in St. Simons. At one point, he’d tried to no avail to get Mr. Gray to relocate.

“Dad turned him down because he had a family,” his son said. “We always wondered what his life would [have] been like if he’d gone to St. Simons with his best friend, because Hendrix opened art schools all over the place.”

Late in life, Mr. Gray rented a studio at the Artists’ Atelier of Atlanta, a cooperative gallery off Miami Circle. Though known for his portraits, he experimented with post-modern expressionism and abstracts as well.

“I would watch him study a painting,” his daughter said, “and he would get right up close and almost put his nose on it in such a fashion I have never seen before. When he painted, he went at it with a lot of motion and rhythm.”

Additional survivors include his wife of 56 years, Marie Kendall Gray of Atlanta; three grandchildren and one great-grandchild.