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| The Canadian Works of George Kruger-Gray
George Edward Kruger was born in St. Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands in 1880, the son of Edwin Charles and Frances Hester (Harris) Kruger. His family emigrated to England when he was but five years old, settling at Blundell Sands near Liverpool . It was here, at the Merchant Taylor School at Great Crosby, that he and his older brother, Norman , attended public school, after which he was determined to make a career in art. Although his family was of modest means, Kruger's ability and diligence was such that he won scholarship after scholarship, earning his A.R.C.A. from the Royal College of Art in July, 1904. Oddly, Kruger was so thoroughly anglicized as to be nearly unable to speak a word of German. By the time war broke out in 1914, Gray was a struggling artist in London , enlisted in a regiment called the "Royal Artists' Rifles" and served several years in France . In 1916, Kruger met Audrey Gordon Gray who he would marry two years later, although her family disapproved of a match with a near penniless artist, moreover bearing a German name. But he was a personable young man and the couple were determined so a compromise was reached: upon his marriage, he legally changed his name to George Edward Kruger-Gray and it was as "Kruger Gray" that he signed his works from then on.
He was talented in many mediums: a watercolor of his wife from 1916 hung in the Royal Academy as did landscapes and etchings; he once constructed a scale model of an ancient ship accurate in every detail. For many years, his "bread and butter" was the design and execution of large stained glass windows as well as the design and construction of armorial bearings of newly created peers. In this latter endeavor, he was counted among the best. But it was as a designer and sculptor that he is best known to Canadians. The Great Seal of the Dominion of Canada, superceding the obsolete design used since Confederation, was his. So was the modern Seal of Nova Scotia. As was the reverse of the George Medal. From the late 1920s through early 1940s, his work appeared on the reverses of many British Commonwealth coins, including many of those of Britain herself during the major design overhaul of 1927. His first such successful efforts came in 1923 when the reverses of the Jersey bronze 1/12th- and 1/24th-shilling were his, as were reverse designs for the first coinage of the Union of South Africa in the same year. Later reverse designs for South Rhodesia (1932) and New Zealand (1933) were also by his hand as were reverses for Australia , Cyprus and Mauritius . Non-Commonwealth designs appeared for Greece , Romania and Latvia . In his creation and execution of coin and medal designs, Kruger-Gray was primarily a sculptor, as were most of his contemporary colleagues and competitors. Whereas previously coin designs were engraved directly into master dies in reverse (or "intaglio") relief, that was not normally the case after 1900. When Thomas Shingles did engrave master dies by hand for our "V-nickel" and 1949 Newfoundland commemorative dollar, he was in lonely company, if not an anachronism. With the development of effective "reducing machines" in the world mints, such talent was no longer required (the RCM didn't have such a machine until after 1949). The modern process of primary design was almost wholly sculpting. In a plastic medium, such as clay, the design was modeled in large size - perhaps something like a foot diameter. When finished, a cast was taken and by electroplating deposition of iron or nickel, a hard shell made of the cast and backed with a stiff material to prevent deformation. Placed in the reducing machine - part lathe, part pantograph - the raised design of the shell was reproduced in much smaller size (usually about 3-inches since no coin was likely to be larger than that) in steel. The intermediate steel model was now used as a primary one, the reducing machine cutting master punches in the diameters appropriate to those of intended coin denominations. As may be seen, the work of the original designer was essentially completed when the large model was submitted. Thereafter the dies were prepared by talented machinists.
Bronze pattern $5, 1928 (left) and $10 (right). Reverses by G.E. Kruger-Gray Kruger-Gray's first coinage efforts for Canada came in 1928 when he designed the reverses of proposed new $5 and $10 gold pieces in that year. Canada had gone off the Gold Standard upon the outbreak of WW1 and didn't return until 1926 (as of 1 July). For years the export of gold coin from Canada had been prohibited, the "unpegged" Canadian dollar at various discount to that of the U.S. Now it was to be made "hard" but the results turned out to be unfortunate; with a trade deficit with the U.S. , American companies sometimes stipulated payment in gold coin and a hemorrhage began. Legislation making such export payment legal only in large sum was also ineffective and in May, 1932, Canada again went off the Gold Standard, some ten months before the U.S. But during the brief second Gold Standard period, preparations were made to return to the mintage of gold coin. In September 1925, the Ottawa Mint requested six pairs of sovereign dies from London , presumably with the intention of there being 1926-C sovereigns. It never happened. And although new $5 and $10 gold Canadian coins should have simply been a matter of changing the date on the master dies last used in 1914, that didn't happen either. It was determined that the coat of arms depicted on the older reverses was incorrect and a request went to London for a newly designed reverse on which they were accurate. Unfortunately for Canada , late 1926 through 1927 was a time during which the Die Room at the Royal Mint was snowed under with work, the result of a total revamping of the British coin designs. By regulation, British work came first and the Canadian request went into the "In Box" to be dealt with as time permitted. As things worked out, Ottawa did not receive the reverse master dies until 1928, by which time the Minister of Finance determined that the issue of such coins might not be a good idea. The dies were the work of G.E. Kruger-Gray who had already been heavily involved with the redesign of the British coin reverses. All that remain to witness their passing are bronze pattern pieces dated 1928. Like his main colleague/competitor, Percy Metcalfe, Kruger-Gray was not an employee of the Royal Mint but rather a "preferred contractor" whose services were frequently sought and used in the area of coin design and supplying of the appropriate models. With the death of George V in January 1936, Canada determined to overhaul the old, dull coinage designs that had gone before with the accession of the new king, Edward VIII. Initially, the new reverse coin designs were restricted to Canadian artists, twelve of whom answered a competition invitation in April 1936. Predominantly wildlife designs, some distinctly superior, were all rejected by Prime Minister King and Finance Minister Dunning on the ground they depicted Canada as a "howling wilderness". Consequently, the two turned over the work to the Royal Mint who would use the services of "real" artists: Percy Metcalfe, George Kruger-Gray and Frank Dobson. As almost an afterthought, "also those (Canadian) artists who were still working on designs". By definition, this was restricted to Emanuel Hahn, the Toronto sculptor responsible for the reverse of the silver dollar, since all his Canadian colleagues threw up the challenge in an insulted huff. Metcalfe was too busy with other British Commonwealth designs to take on this extra work and Dobson was dropped as a superfluous expense, leaving the Canadian field to George E. Kruger-Gray of England, and Emanuel Hahn, the native Canadian. Oddly, the King-Dunning objections were largely circumvented when the Deputy Master of the Royal Mint, Robert Johnson, inquired of the Governor-General of Canada, Lord Tweedsmuir, as to the general design guidelines and was told they were to be "animal subjects" or "historical interest" such as the reverse of the silver dollar. Generally speaking, the new reverses were just the "howling wilderness" theme that had been deemed so objectionable. Of the five new reverses (Hahn's dollar reverse from 1935 continued unchanged), three were by G.E. Kruger-Gray: 1 cent, 5-cents and 50-cents. As expected, any surviving drawings show that modifications were made, not the least of which was that which became the reverse of the 5-cent - the beaver - was originally intended for the 10-cents. Even though Edward VIII abdicated in December 1936, necessitating entirely new obverses for the new king, his brother George VI, the frantic mint activity was mostly confined to the new obverses, the Canadian reverses of Hahn and Kruger-Gray more or less completed and "in the pipe". Even so, Canada saw no new 1937 coins until May, and the 50-cents and silver dollar not until July.
As we can see from the two enlarged illustrations, Kruger-Gray's original sketch for the one-cent reverse and as it actually appeared saw a certain amount of modification, mostly by having the word CANADA curved to match the rim. We would have to be generous, however, in terming the sprig of maple leaves being other than "stylized" since no botanist could classify them as belonging to any known species. Maple leaves and twigs grow in "opposite" configuration, meaning that they grow in pairs; this twig is in "alternate" (or left-right, left-right) configuration. In fact, it appears much like the tip of an apple branch with maple leaves attached. Nor would the leaves shown appear to belong to any known species of maple occurring in Canada; they are not of the sugar maple, red maple, bigleaf maple, striped maple or mountain maple - all those that exist in this country as a tree or at least a large shrub.
As shown, the design for what was settled on the reverse of the 5-cents piece was originally meant for the 10-cents by Kruger-Gray. Here again modifications were made, the denomination aside. The beaver itself was made more realistically "humpier"; the curved upper legend reduced to "5 CENTS" flanked by maple leaves and the date moved below CANADA in the exergue. (The dot, incidentally, merely "squares up" the date).
The 50-cents reverse was also modified considerably, the flanking lion and unicorn supporting the arms shield made to stand up from a sitting position. Those aside, the rest of the design was, in general, used. However, as the actual struck coin in circulation, the reverse of the 50-cents was one of the most troublesome. With T. Humphrey Paget's bareheaded effigy of George VI on the opposite side, metal flow often caused an area of weakness on the reverse centered on the upper shield and rim of the crown. Since the diameter-to-thickness ratio made the 50-cents a somewhat thin coin, this weakness showed up as a frequent problem even into the reign of Elizabeth II when the reverse was slightly modified and relief lowered in 1955. But not until Thomas Shingles completely re-designed the reverse did the metal-flow problem entirely disappear. So far as that goes, the problem would probably have been as bad or worse on the 5-cents had the coin not been rather thick in proportion to its diameter, which prevented the problem. Although Kruger-Gray's 50-cent reverse design was retired in 1959, replaced by a realistic depiction of the Canadian coat of arms by Thomas Shingles, the designs for the 1-cent and 5-cents reverses remain in use to the present day, more than 70 years later. Only Hahn's 10-cents "Bluenose schooner" and 25-cents "Caribou" reverse designs equal them in longevity. Although he was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (C.B.E.) by George VI in 1938, George Edward Kruger-Gray contracted pneumonia in 1943 and although penicillin had been invented, it was in short supply and entirely reserved for the military. Deprived of this probable cure, Kruger-Gray died, leaving behind a considerable artistic legacy.
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FebruaryThe Canadian Works of George Kruger-Gray
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