Ray Mead (1921–1998) was a Canadian

abstract expressionist Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

painter and a member of the artists group known as

Painters Eleven Painters Eleven (also known as Painters 11 or P11) was a group of abstract artists active in Canada between 1953 and 1960. They are associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement. History Since the 1920s, artists in English Canada had been h ...

. In his work, he often used a high horizon line as a structural element.

Early life and career

Born in

Watford Watford () is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, 15 miles northwest of Central London, on the River Colne. Initially a small market town, the Grand Junction Canal encouraged the construction of paper-making mills, print works, and ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, Mead studied under John Nash and Randolph Schwab at the

Slade School of Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

in London, graduating in 1939. During World War II, he moved to New York where he trained American pilots in combat flying. Sometime around 1943, he went to New York and first saw American abstraction in the work of Stuart Davis. In 1946 he moved to

Hamilton, Ontario Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Ontario. Hamilton has a Canada 2016 Census, population of 569,353, and its Census Metropolitan Area, census metropolitan area, which includes Burlington, ...

, where he befriended Hortense Gordon, who with him became a member of

. Later, in Toronto, he worked for Maclaren Advertising as art director. In 1958, Mead moved to Montreal to work at the Maclaren`s branch there, and became associated, through the dealer of his Montreal gallery, Denyse Delrue, with Quebec abstract artists such as Guido Molinari and

Claude Tousignant Claude Tousignant (born December 23, 1932 in Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian artist. Tousignant is considered to be an important contributor to the development of geometric abstraction in Canada. Biography Claude Tousignant was born in Montr ...

who also showed their work with her. These artists had an influence on him, as did

Robert Motherwell Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American abstract expressionist painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of the New York School, which also inc ...

. Mead`s finely-tuned work has been called "a dry-martini sort of art". Having returned to Toronto in 1987, he worked continuously until his death in 1998 in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

. A posthumous retrospective of his work was held at the Howard Scott Gallery in New York City in 1998.

Painters Eleven

In 1949, Mead met Hortense Gordon in Hamilton and he was included in the ''Abstracts at Home'' exhibition held in 1953 at the Robert Simpson Company, Toronto. He joined Painters Eleven when the group was formed later that year. In Canada's conservative art world their early exhibitions were met with disdain.Burnett and Schiff ''Contemporary Canadian Art'', p. 46 Nevertheless, Painters Eleven attracted U.S. exposure with a successful exhibition in 1956, ''Twentieth Annual Exhibition of American Abstract Artists with 'Painters Eleven' of Canada'', with the

American Abstract Artists American Abstract Artists (AAA) was formed in 1936 in New York City, to promote and foster public understanding of abstract art. American Abstract Artists exhibitions, publications, and lectures helped to establish the organization as a major fo ...

at the

Riverside Museum The Riverside Museum (formerly known as the Glasgow Museum of Transport) is a museum in Glasgow, housed in a building at Pointhouse Quay in the Glasgow Harbour regeneration district of Glasgow, Scotland. The building opened in June 2011, winnin ...

in New York City, and were praised by the influential critic

Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formali ...

on a visit he paid to Toronto in 1957. In the Canadian press, the group's most ardent supporter was art critic Robert Fulford. The group formally disbanded in 1960.

References

Bibliography

*Broad, Graham. "Art Shock in Toronto: Painters Eleven, The Shock of the New." ''The Beaver, Canada’s History Magazine'' Vol. 84:1 (2004) *Murray, Joan. ''Ray Mead: Two Decades: The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, 5–31 January 1982''. Oshawa: Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 1981. * *

External links

* http://www.painters-eleven.com/ray-mead
Christopher Cutts Gallery
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mead, Ray 20th-century Canadian painters Canadian male painters Abstract painters 1921 births 1998 deaths British emigrants to Canada Canadian abstract artists Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art 20th-century Canadian male artists Canadian collage artists