A best-poke fashion illustrator, Richard Gray lived and worked in London. Whilst he was still a fashion student at Middlesex Polytechnic, he was commissioned by Anna Piaggi to make drawings for her pages in Vogue Italia and for the Eighties avant garde magazine Vanity.
Since then, Gray has collaborated with some of Fashion’s greatest names including Alexander McQueen, AgentProvocateur, Vivienne Westwood, Julien MacDonald and Givenchy as well as stars from the Entertainment Industry such as Kylie Minogue and Britney Spears. He has illustrated the couture shows for The Observer and The Independent and his work has been used, amongst others, by a host of Vogue titles, VMagazine, Madame Figaro, amongst many others.
Gray had a special working relationship with the late Alexander McQueen and for his SS08 show La Dame Bleue, which was dedicated to Isabella Blow, Gray created a poster sized portrait of Blow which was used on the show's invitation. Other projects have seen Gray exhibit work in the windows of Milan’s Via Della Spiga and the V&A where he designed and made an installation called Morpho-illogical as part of Anna Piaggi’s exhibition Fashion-ology.
He have since become part of the V&A Magazine’s permanent collection of fashion drawings, and a selection of the newly acquired illustrations will be featured in an upcoming book from V&A Publishing entitled Illustrating Fashion, which is being written by Abraham Thomas.
The thing I love about Gray's work is the polygonal aspect in which he treats his characters and the way that lines and shapes break up and balance the composition perfectly. Everything fits into place so well, Gray's a master at working from realist pencil to expressionist-style shapes and proportions, then creating something that combines both. His exotic and explosive use of colour is also something a lot of illustrators find difficult to do so.
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