The Westchester LGBTQ+ History Project

A gay Black painter, curator, and critic, Murry accomplished much in his too-brief life. 

Murry wrote for “Arts Magazine,” taught art history at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, attended graduate school at the Yale School of Art, and held a solo exhibition at the Sharpe Gallery in New York City in 1987. He died of AIDS related complications in 1993. His writings and art were published in a collection entitled “Painting is a Supreme Fiction” in 2021, and an exhibit of his work entitled “Jesse Murry: Rising” opened in September 2021 at David Zwirner, in New York. His work was also exhibited at the The Tibor de Nagy Gallery in New York in 2019.

Jesse was originally from North Carolina but was raised by his aunts in White Plains, NY, before being adopted by Isabel D. Clark, library director of the White Plains Public Library, where he spent much of his time as a child.

Before moving to New York City, Murry was active in the Westchester arts community. According to an article published in the Mount Vernon Daily Argus, Murry held a film discussion series in Greenburgh, NY sponsored by the Greenburgh Arts and Culture Committee called “What Makes a Movie Great?” in 1970. He also wrote movie criticism for a Greenburgh-based newspaper called the Masterson Press. Additionally, he acted in community theater productions with the Fort Hill Players and taught drama for the White Plains Recreation Commission.

He entered Sarah Lawrence College in 1972, where a former classmate stated he was “among the very few Black men enrolled at the time.” (Sarah Lawrence yearbooks from this time period also indicate this.) He graduated in 1976.

It’s possible he was specifically active within the LGBTQ+ community in Westchester at the time as well, and was likely out to some degree: a newspaper article names him as being one of several men reportedly arrested during a raid at Fenimore Circle (a gay bar) in 1968.

Today, the Jesse Murry Foundation is committed to “preserving and documenting the artist’s work and writings…[and] has started to support exhibitions and programming around Jesse’s legacy. According to The Art Newspaper, Murry’s archives are currently being “revealed and examined” with the assistance of the Hauser & Wirth Institute.

If you have more information about Jesse Murry’s life in Westchester, please email westchesterlgbtqhistoryproject@proton.me