From The Martha’s Vineyard Times’ Edgartown artist Ray Ellis dies:
Ray Ellis, whose oil and watercolor paintings hang in world famous museums, the White House, local galleries, and many Martha’s Vineyard homes, died Friday evening at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. He was 92.
The prolific artist first knew the Island as a visitor. He first showed his work here 43 years ago. In the 1970’s, he moved to Savannah, Georgia, where he established a successful gallery. In 1991 he came to live in Edgartown permanently.
“There’s no place as beautiful as here,” he told The Times in a 2011 interview. “Harbors, beaches, farmland, and light — I never run out of ideas. I see compositions every time I go out.”
Ray Ellis Gallery has struck a note of quiet elegance on bustling West Congress Street since it’s founding in 1987.
The Telfair launched a major exhibit of Ellis’ work in 2004.
In 2011, Savannah writer Allison Hersh checked in with the then-89-year-old artist as he was about to debut his 24th annual spring exhibition at the gallery.
Ellis told Hersh: “My big break came in 1980, when I got a call about doing a book about the South. From then on, my career bloomed.â€
Ellis would have been about 60 when that big break came.
The news was also released this morning by the Ray Ellis Gallery Facebook page.
An image embedded from that page: