Gray Foy was a consummate draftsman who worked in a Surrealist style. His work first came to public attention in 1946 when one of his drawings appeared in the pages of View, the premier American Surrealist magazine of the day. Foy was born in Dallas, Texas, but raised in California. In 1947, he moved to New York, where he continued to make drawings in a Surrealist style, but by the end of the 1940s, he had transitioned to the depiction of botanical subjects. These drawings retain the delicacy and intricacy that had characterized his earlier work, a line so masterful that it is perhaps best compared to historical precedents such as Albrecht Durer and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Foy exhibited his drawings in group and one-man showsin New York until the mid-1970s. By then he had entered into a relationship with Leo Lerman, the illustrious editor of various Conde Nast publications (such as Vogue); they remained partners and lived a glamorous life together until Lerman’s death in 1994. Over the years, Foy’s work took the backstage until it emerged again recently.
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