cost £75 but was unpopular with some at Balliol, having a cup of tea thrown at it. Gowrie arranged an interpretative talk about it, but the JCR declined to retain it, and its dealer bought it back for £80; it was later sold for £13,800. Academic and art dealer Gowrie worked for the Times Literary Supplement for a short time, and taught, meeting his future wife while working in a girls' school. After marriage, he moved to the US, working as a visiting lecturer at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo from 1963 to 1964, then tutoring at Harvard University from 1965 to 1968, while also working with poet Robert Lowell. Gowrie returned from the US in 1969, as lecturer in English and American Literature at University College London; he also trained as an art dealer in Bond Street, working with Thomas Gibson Fine Art. Early deals included a portrait of Peter Lacey by Francis Bacon, which Gowrie offered first, at no commission, to the National Gallery of Ireland. When the gallery rejected the work of "this disgraceful artist", he sold it to Elton John. He dealt in Old Masters, Picassos, and David Hockney at an early stage, and on one occasion sold a Jackson Pollock to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., for $2 million. He produced his first volume of poetry, A Postcard from Don Giovanni, in 1972; David Hockney produced a sketch of Gowrie for its front cover. Political career Whip and front bench Gowrie became a member of the Conservative Party, and made his maiden speech in the House of Lords in 1968, speaking on reform of the house. In 1971 he represented the British parliament on the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations. He joined the Conservative front bench under Ted Heath in 1972 as a Lord-in-waiting and Conservative whip in the House of Lords, posts he held until 1974. While the Conservatives were in opposition from 1974 to 1979, he was spokesperson on economic affairs. Gowrie was seen as socially liberal but at the same time was described as an early convert to Thatcherite policies, and at the "dry" end of his party's debates between wets and dries. Denis Healey, his Government opponent (Chancellor of the Exchequer 1974 to 1979), said of him, “Grey is the only Conservative who understands monetarism”. His first ministerial post was under Margaret