Ray Mead (1921–1998) was a Canadian abstract expressionist painter and a member of the artists group known as Painters Eleven. In his work, he often used a high horizon line as a structural element. 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. 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 at the Riverside Museum in New York City, and were praised by the influential critic Clement Greenberg on a visit he paid to Toronto in 1957.
