Ray Ellis was born in Philadelphia, and showed artistic talent from a young age. He attended the Philadelphia Museum School of Art, and his first one-man show was held in 1947 at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Ellis’ memberships in professional organizations include the American Watercolor Society, Artist’s Fellowship, National Arts Club, Salmagundi Club, and the Century Club.
He earned numerous awards for his watercolors from the AWS, Hudson Valley Art Association, Audubon Artists, Salmagundi Club, and more. In 2004 he was awarded the Salmagundi Club’s Medal of Honor for a lifetime of achievement in the arts.
From 1998 to 2000 Ellis created a painting each year for the White House Christmas cards. He has lived, traveled, and exhibited widely. His paintings hang in many museums, including the Heckscher Museum, the Farnsworth Museum, the Morris Museum, NJ, and The Morris Museum of Art, among many others.
Ellis’ paintings have been reproduced in numerous fine art books – South by Southeast, North by Northeast, and Westwind, by Ray Ellis and Walter Cronkite; several books of golf paintings, books of Martha’s Vineyard and the South Carolina Lowcountry, books of garden and floral paintings, and Ray Ellis in Retrospect: A Painter’s Journey, and By the Light of the Moon.