Norah Neilson Gray

Gray was born at Carisbrook, West King Street in Helensburgh in 1882 to Norah Neilson, who was from a Falkirk auctioneering family, and George Gray, a Glasgow ship owner.^[3] She was first privately taught by two local art teachers, Misses Park and Ross, at a studio at Craigendoran, outside Helensburgh.^[3] Then in 1901, Gray moved with her family to Glasgow so that she could attend Glasgow School of Art (GSA) which she did until 1906.^[4] She trained under the Belgian artist Jean Delville and the Scottish painter Fra Newbery. In 1905, while still a student, Gray had her portrait of her sister Gerty accepted for display at the Royal Academy in London.^[3][1] She taught fashion-plate drawing at GSA from 1906.^[5]

Gray also taught at St Columba's School, Kilmacolm which at the time was a girls' school. Gray was said to have been nicknamed "Purple Patch", because of her insistence that colours could be seen in shadows if you looked correctly.^[4] By 1910, Gray was regularly exhibiting portraits at the Royal Academy, the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts and at the Paris Salon.^[3] She had her own studio at Bath Street in Glasgow and held her first solo exhibition at Warneuke's Gallery in Glasgow.^[3]

In 1914, Gray was elected a member of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour and illustrated a volume of work by Wordsworth.^[3] Gray adopted a pointillist technique for her 1914 painting, The Missing Trawler now in the collection of Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.^[3]

During World War I Gray produce some of her most notable work. The Country's Charge, from 1915, depicts a woman and child wrapped in a shawl. The painting was shown at the Royal Academy and sold for the benefit of the Red Cross and then donated to the Royal Free Hospital.^[3] Her painting The Belgian in Exile, which was completed in 1915, shows a Belgian refugee from Liège who had fled to Scotland after his country was invaded.^[6] The painting was shown in Glasgow in 1916, at the Royal Academy in 1917 and at the Paris Salon in 1921 where it was awarded the bronze medal.^[3]

During the War, Gray volunteered as a nurse with the Scottish Women's Hospitals and was sent to France where she also found time to paint and sketch.^[7] A painting Hôpital Auxilaire 1918 from that time was offered to the Imperial War Museum but the Women's Work Sub-committee of the Museum refused to accept it and requested a painting showing Miss Frances Ivens and other women involved in the care of wounded French soldiers. Hôpital Auxilaire 1918 shows the vaulted 13th-century Royaumont Abbaye, near Paris, where women had organised a hospital to treat the casualties of the war.^[7] The hospital was staffed by Scottish Women's Hospitals, under the direction of the French Red Cross.^[8] Her second painting of Royaumont Abbaye, entitled The Scottish Women's Hospital In The Cloister of the Abbaye at Royaumont. Dr Frances Ivens inspecting a French patient was accepted by the IWM in 1920.^[8][9]

After World War I, Gray returned to her work as a portraitist, most commonly painting young women and children.^[5] In 1923, Gray won the silver medal at the Paris Salon for her painting Le Jeune Fille.^[3] Gray was chosen to be the first woman to join the influential hanging committee of the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts.^[4][9]

On 27 May 1931, Gray died of cancer in Glasgow, aged 48.