Life and work

Ralph Gordon Ellis was born in Arundel

Arundel

Arundel is a market town and civil parish in the South Downs of West Sussex in the south of England. It lies south southwest of London, west of Brighton, and east of the county town of Chichester. Other nearby towns include Worthing east southeast, Littlehampton to the south and Bognor Regis to...

 on 31 January 1885 at no.12 the High Street, overlooking the square. His father William was in business as a taxidermist.

On leaving school, Ralph went away to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 as an apprentice to a furniture draughtsman and designer, but never settled to the work. Instead, he turned to painting - an interest of his father's - by day making his living by painting houses and after work attending evening classes in drawing and painting.

In 1913, three years after his marriage to Gertrude Seymour, a stonemason's daughter, he opened a little shop in her home town of Bognor as an 'oil and colour man', selling home decorating materials and artists' supplies as well as his own paintings.

During the First World War, Ralph saw action with the Royal Sussex Regiment and the Queen's (Royal West Surrey) Regiment. Injured by shrapnel in July 1917, Ralph was discharged and returned to England. He then enrolled at the Slade School of Fine Art

Slade School of Fine Art

The Slade School of Fine Art is a world-renownedart school in London, United Kingdom, and a department of University College London...

 in London where he studied until 1919.

Relocating to Arundel in 1920, Ralph soon established his reputation as a portrait and landscape painter and, in a highly specialised field of art, as a designer and painter of inn signs. By the end of his commercial career he had painted well over two hundred signs for the Henty & Constable brewery alone.

Ralph retired from his inn sign painting business in 1951 and then dedicated the rest of his life to landscape painting. He died in Arundel in 1963 - a commemorative blue plaque

Blue plaque

A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person or event, serving as a historical marker....

was erected by West Sussex County Council on his home at 47 Maltravers Street, Arundel in May 1995.

Exhibitions

He exhibited a portrait of Arthur Greaves, J.P at the Royal Academy in 1931; El Rio in 1933. An exhibition on the life and work of Ralph Ellis is on permanent display at Arundel Museum.

Signs Painted For Inns & Hotels

• Cricketers (Donnington)
• Coach & Horses (Compton)
• Fox & Hounds (Funtington)

External links

• Arundel Museum Houses permanent exhibit of Ellis's work.