George Edward Kruger Gray CBE
Other names: von W. Kruger
Born 25 December 1880
Died 2 May 1943
Active: 1901 - 1943
Country of birth and death: England
Painter, sculptor, medallist, heraldic decorator, stained glass window designer
Born at 126 Kensington Park Road, London. Added the name Gray after his marriage in 1918. Studied at Merchant Taylor's School in Crosby where he was the only survivor of a tragic accident involving his brother, Norman, and another boy swimming at sea (1893).
Kruger Gray attended Bath School of Art and the Royal College of Art (winner of a Royal Exhibition scholarship), where he studied under W. R. Lethaby. During the First World war he served in the Artists' Rifles and then the camouflage section of the Royal Engineers.
From the early 1920s when his designs for the South African coinage were selected by the Royal Mint, he increasingly turned to decorative designing for which he received numerous commissions.
In 1936 he was made a liveryman of the Glaziers Company, a year later he was given the freedom of the City of London and in 1938 he was awarded a CBE. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and died at St Richard’s Hospital, Chichester, West Sussex.
Wealth at death: £8,755 1s. 8d.
Probate date: 16 September 1943
Works
Dates are usually the year a work was exhibited so may differ from date of production.
New entries have been made each time a work was exhibited. Click here for more information.
Badge, designed for the Ministry of Munitions, 1915
Coinage for the Union of South Africa
1923 (Circa)
Designed Mace (for Westminster Abbey)
1943
Designed before this date
Locations
Address 124 Cheyne Walk London SW | View on map
1909 (Circa) - 1919 (Circa)
Studio located at 5 St Paul's Studio Talgarth Road London | View on map
1922 (Circa) - 1936 (Circa)
Studio located at The Studio, 11 Addison Crescent London W | View on map
1937 - 1943
Exhibitions, Meetings, Awards and other Events
Exhibited at Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society: Eleventh Exhibition, 1916
'Badge, designed for the Ministry of Munitions, 1915'
Exhibited at Aberdeen Artists' Society Exhibition of Works of Modern Artists, 1926
Multiple works
Exhibited at The Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts (Summer Exhibition), 1768-
1905 - 1943
Exhibited 27 times, one or two works per year (from 1919 under the name of George Kruger Gray and from the 1920s showing as both a sculptor and a painter).
Speaker at Temporary Street Decoration (Art Workers Guild), 1914
Speaker at Horse-trappings (Art Workers Guild), 1915
Speaker at Heraldry (Art Workers Guild), 1933
Speaker at Shop Fronts and Shop Fittings (Art Workers Guild), 1923
Speaker at The Craft of Shipbuilding (Art Workers Guild), 1933
Speaker at The English Castle (Art Workers Guild), 1939
Speaker at Castles, Gatehouses, Fortified Manors and Bridges (Art Workers Guild), 1922
Speaker at Colour in our Craft (Art Workers Guild), 1930
Speaker at Albrecht Dürer (Art Workers Guild), 1928
Speaker at Type Design and Typography / Value of Pattern in Art (Art Workers Guild), 1924
Personal and Professional Connections
Collaborated with Laurence Arthur Turner
1931 (Circa) - 1936 (Circa)
On the panels in Memory of Distinguished Harovians, Speech Room, Harrow School, unveiled 1931-36 (carved under the supervision of Turner, designed and painted by Kruger Gray)
Friends with Benjamin Clemens
Described in an article in The Times of 1945 about Clemens completing the Mace designed by Kruger Gray for Westminster Abbey, as very close friends
Descriptions of Practice
Occupation given in Census Returns of England and Wales, 1901
'Art Student'
Occupation given in Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911
'Artist Painter' working on own account at home
Sources
Aberdeen Artists' Society. Nineteenth Exhibition of Works of Modern Masters, 1926
November 1926
p. 81
Art Workers Guild Annual Reports, 1913-1933
1914, p.10; 1915, p.17.
Arts and Crafts Society: Catalogue of the Eleventh Exhibition.
1916
p.79, p.85, p.93, p.187, p.189, p.195, p.204.
Census Returns of England and Wales, 1901
2001
Class: RG13; Piece: 21; Folio: 85; Page: 10
Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911
2009
RG14PN407 RG78PN13 RD4 SD2 ED10 SN624
England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1966
2010
Name: George Edward Kruger Gray
Probate Date: 16 Sep 1943
Death Date: 2 May 1943
Death Place: Sussex, England
Registry: Llandudno
Royal Academy Exhibitors 1905-70: A Dictionary of Artists and their Work in the Summer Exhibitions of the Royal Academy of Arts, Vol III E-Har
1978
pp. 187-88 (under 'Gray, George Kruger')
The Times Digital Archive 1785-1985
2008
The Times, Monday, May 21, 1945; pg. 6; Issue 50147; col C Ecclesiastical News Mace For Westminster Abbey Category: Official Appointments and Notices (accessed 21 June 2010)
The Times Digital Archive 1785-1985
2008
The Times, Tuesday, May 04, 1943; pg. 6; Issue 49536; col F Obituary Category: Obituaries
Who was Who
December 2007
‘GRAY, George Kruger’, Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007 [http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U226097, accessed 13 Jan 2009]
Citing this record
'George Edward Kruger Gray CBE', Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011 [http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib6_1246525312, accessed 21 Mar 2023]
