Lot 29
RAYMOND JOHN MEAD (1921-1998)
Additional Images
Provenance:
Private Collection, Calgary
Literature:
Berlin, Mira, “Ray Mead,” in The Canadian Encyclopedia, Accessed 13 March 2017, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/ray-mead/
Note:
One of the founders of the groundbreaking collective Painters Eleven, Ray Mead is best known for combining the influences of the Group of Seven and their landscape paintings with the emotive modern techniques of the Abstract Expressionists. His bold, richly colored canvases are referred to as “paintscapes,” with an energetic yet contemplative character. Mead’s reductive approach developed as a result of his friendship with Hortense Gordon, one of two female Painters Eleven artists. She was a student of American artist Hans Hofmann who is famous for his interest in color and its ability to bring out and dictate form. Gordon encouraged Mead to participate in the Jubilee Year Canadian Art Show, where Mead was “singled out as representing a new direction in Canadian painting.”