British Artist Tess Jaray, Known for Her Hard-Edge Abstractions, Has Died at 88
British artist, printmaker, and educator Tess Jaray—known for hard-edge abstract paintings and public art projects—died on May 24 at age 88, with the news first reported by the Guardian. Born in Vienna in 1937 to a Jewish family, she fled to Britain after the 1938 Nazi annexation of Austria; her family history included losses in the Łódź ghetto and deportations to Theresienstadt and Auschwitz, and she had notable connections to collector Lea Bondi Jaray and art historian Ernst Gombrich. Jaray studied at St Martin’s School of Art (1954–1957) and the Slade School of Fine Art (graduated 1960), later producing precisely planned abstractions and, in the 2000s, laser-cut acrylic-on-metal works such as the “Thorn” series (2014). Her public commissions included a floor at London’s Victoria Station (1985), a brick precinct for Wakefield Cathedral (1989–1992), and the stone floor of St. Mary’s Church in Nottingham (2014); she became an honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1995, was elected a Royal Academician in 2010, and taught at the Slade from 1968 to 1999. She is survived by daughters Anna and Georgia and four grandchildren.
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This story was covered in Restitution Reckonings and a Heat-Strained Art World