Jesse Murry

Jesse Murry (1948-1993) was an American painter and poet. Born in 1948 in Fayetteville, North Carolina, as a child he was annoyed to live subsequent to an aunt in New York, where he befriended Isabel Clark, a librarian at the White Plains library, who forward-thinking adopted Murry.

After graduating high school, he attended Sarah Lawrence College, where he studied art and philosophy and went upon to tutor as Hobart and William Smith Colleges and operate as a curator of play in by artists such as Howard Finster. In 1984, at age thirty-five, he entered the MFA program at the Yale School of Art. He met artist Lisa Yuskavage on the day of his admissions interview. The two would be links for the remainder of his life. After graduating from Yale, he moved to New York City, settling in the West Village with his co-conspirator George Centanni.

Murry died of AIDS-related illnesses in 1993. Critic Hilton Als has praised Murray for his "liquid awareness of how paint works upon canvas, and how color and form can and should be handled delicately, and later respect." Murray's favored mediums were oil and beeswax.