William Aubrey Gray was born on June 1, 1898 in Chicago, Illinois. His father, William John Gray, was born in 1868 in Illinois of Irish ancestry. His mother, Jessie Schank, was born in 1878 in Illinois of German ancestry. His parents married in 1897 and had two children, William (b.1898), and Gordon (b.1899). The family lived at 857 Fulton Street in Chicago. The father was a druggist at a local hospital.
By 1910 the family had moved to 3433 Walnut Street in Chicago. The children attended local public schools.
In 1913 William Gray began to attend Crane Technical High School at 2245 West Jackson Boulevard, where he studied to become a commercial artist. In 1915 he served as the associate editor of the school yearbook, which was also illustrated with several of his drawings.
In June of 1916 William Gray graduated from the Crane Technical High School. After graduation he enrolled as a student at the Armon Institute at 33 Federal Street in Chicago.
On September 12, 1918, during the Great War, William Gray reported to his local draft board, where he was recorded to have been age twenty, tall, of medium build, with blue eyes and light brown hair. He was not selected for military service.
In June of 1919 William Gray completed his second year at the Armon Institute, after which he left school and entered the workforce as a commercial artist. He lived at home at 3433 Walnut Street with his parents and younger brother, Gordon, who at that time was age ten.
At some time in the 1920s William Gray married his first wife.
Around 1929 he left Chicago and moved to New York City, where he continued to work as a commercial artist. He lived at the Hotel Howard in midtown at 66 West 46th Street. His roommate was Hazel E. Whitehouse, a private nurse. She was born in 1905 in Florida, and was a high school graduate. Her father, Dana Whitehouse, was born in Kentucky. Her mother, Harriet Hooper, was born in Massachusetts.
In 1930 he painted the cover of the pulp magazine All-Fiction Magazine, which was produced in NYC by the Dell Publishing Company. Other artists who painted covers the same magazine were Rafael DeSoto, William Reusswig, and H. C. Murphy.
In 1931 the artist was granted a divorce from his first wife. One year later, the artist and his friend, Hazel E. Whitehouse, left NYC and moved to Asbury Park, New Jersey.
On November 29, 1935 William A. Gray married Hazel E. Whitehouse in Nashua, New Hampshire, which is a suburban town just north of Boston, where her parents lived. In 1935 the married couple moved to Massachusetts, where they raised their four children, Hazel (b.1931), William, Jr. (b.1932), Sandra (b.1936), and Gordon (b.1938).
In 1938 the artist rented a NYC apartment in the Coronet Building at 57 West 58th Street, on Sixth Avenue, just one block below Central Park South. Here is a photograph from 1938 of the artist in his NYC art studio.
During World War Two that artist was too old, too married, and four-childrened for military service.
After the war the artist and his family moved to Red Bank, New Jersey.
On September 12, 1946, the artist's father, William John Gray, died at the age of seventy-nine in Chicago.
In 1946 William Gray began to illustrate pulp magazines produced by the Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. His work appeared in Amazing Stories, Mammoth Adventure, Mammoth Detective, Mammoth Mystery, and Mammoth Western.
By 1950 William Gray had left pulp magazines and worked as a gag cartoonist for newspapers and joke books, as well as in advertising.
By 1953 the artist was teaching graphic arts in a high school in Red Bank, New Jersey.
In 1964 the artist's mother, Jessie Gray, died at the age of eighty-six in Chicago.
In 1963, at the age of sixty five, the artist and his wife left New Jersey and moved to California to live closer to the families of their grown children.
On February 15, 1974 the artist's wife, Hazel (Whitehouse) Gray, died at the age of sixty-nine in Torrance, CA. They had been married for thirty-eight years.
Only a few months later, on June 20, 1974, William Aubrey Gray died at the age of seventy-six in Torrance, CA.
© David Saunders 2019 |
