Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
In 1965, Paul McConaughy sought an inexpensive method for producing limited-edition watercolor prints. He tested his idea at his alma mater by creating a series of prints depicting buildings at Cornell University. The prints were immediately popular, leading to the formation of the College Watercolor Group. The group soon expanded production to include affordable watercolor prints of college buildings from across the United States.
Modeled after the nineteenth-century approach used by Currier and Ives, the process began with a pen-and-ink drawing of a building, which was reproduced as an 8 x 10 lithograph on watercolor paper. Artists then hand-colored each print. The group offered limited-edition sets of four scenes as well as larger individual prints, available framed or unframed.
As professional artists joined the staff, the overall quality of the work improved significantly. One artist, E. B. Walden, began signing his prints using the surname Gray, derived from the watercolor pigment Davy’s Gray. Other artists adopted the same surname while using different first names, with Walden signing as Davis Gray. More than a dozen artists eventually used the Gray name, and this naming convention led to the business becoming known as Gray’s Watercolors.