Basil Gray, CB, CBE, FBA (1904–1989), was an English art historian, Islamicist, author, and the head of the British Museum's Oriental department.
[2] Following graduation in 1927 Gray travelled to the Schönbrunn Palace and Osterreichisches Museum in Vienna to view Mughal painting.
[3] While in Vienna he studied under Josef Strzygowski, and developed a friendship with Otto Demus, art historian and Byzantinist.
[2] Following this he worked with art historian David Talbot Rice at the British Academy excavations of the palace of the Byzantine emperors in Constantinople.
He became Vice-President of the British Institute of Persian Studies in 1969, chaired the Sixth International Congress of Iranian Art and Archaeology at Oxford in 1972, and became President of the Societas Iranologica Europara in 1983.