Lawrence.com

When Mary Gray died in June 1999, she left a third of her vast Asian art collection to Kansas University's Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art.

The other 266 pieces will be auctioned this weekend at the Lawrence Arts Center.

"I've been kind of in, and around, this business for many years � but never seen anything quite like this. It was breathtaking," auctioneer Kasey Wold said of the collection. "I felt goose bumps on the back of my neck; I really had to sit down."

Gray, a Kansas native, was a student of archaeology, Hebrew and religion and traveled the world. For seven years, she was the director of courses for English programs for the U.S. Information Agency in Rangoon, Burma.

In her travels, she picked up artifacts, art and textiles from around the Eastern part of the world.

Wold said that Gray told of being in Cambodia after bombings. Among the buildings hit were temples. Gray told Wold she then came across a newspaper advertisement.

"The public could for $1 go in and pick through the rubble," Wold said. "She did just that.

"There was a lot more history than we know (in the collection), and she didn't write (it) down. These things were her life or at least a big part of it."

Gray later returned to America, helping Asian professionals and graduate students moving to the United States. She lived in Honolulu for 13 years, working at the University of Hawaii. In 1993 she retired from the Asia Foundation and moved to Lawrence to be closer to her brother, John Westcott.

Some of the items in Gray's collection include a more than 300-year-old Thai statue, a 500-year-old Egyptian eyedropper and paintings by several Asian artists.

"There's a piece in there, definitely a religious piece, I believe it's one of the Buddhas. When the person was doing the appraising, she looked at it, and she said, 'I can't give you a price on this. It really shouldn't be sold.'"

A preview of the auction items will begin at 9 a.m. Saturday. The arts center doors will open to the public at 1 p.m. for bidding on the first 133 items. The second half of the auction will begin at 11 a.m. Sunday. Admission is $10 for the preview and both days of the sale.