Ted Ellis (born 1963) is an American artist and former environmental chemist. Ellis is best known for his African-American themed art and styles which blend elements of folk art, naturalism and impressionism. His personal rendition of Barack Obama in acrylic, Obama, the 44th President, was presented in honor of the 2009 Presidential Inauguration.

Ellis' art business has sold over 1.75 million fine art products, and he works with a number of prominent corporations. He is also known for his community work, especially advancing arts in children's education.

Born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, to a professional musician-father and a housewife-mother, Ted Ellis' earliest hints of artistic talent began to show at five-years-old. Ellis' first attempt at art was a third-grade freehand sketch of a dog from Archie Comics, which he drew so accurately that friends and family believed it had been traced. Growing up, one of his favorite characters to draw was Wile E. Coyote, and as an adult he continues to enjoy comic books as "refreshing".

When he was old enough, Ted would ride the bus alone to downtown New Orleans so as to be exposed to and spend time with the area artists. He and his friends would in their spare time compete with one another to see who could draw the best designs, and Ted continued developing his art skills throughout primary school despite only receiving "satisfactory" marks in art class. In elementary school he attended a summer program at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, and later attended an after-school program at Lawless High School. Ellis says that he knew he wanted to be an artist in the seventh grade, and credits his teacher in that class for keeping him focused.

Ted worked for a time with charcoal and pastel before settling on oil and acrylic. He took art classes during high school and enrolled in four months of private art lessons, but is otherwise self-taught. Ellis followed advice from Anna Torregano, his mentor, friend and high school art teacher, and his parents, all of whom advised him to pursue an academic career so as not to become a "starving artist". His mother especially stressed university and earning a professional degree.

Ted Ellis earned a B.Sc. in Chemistry at Dillard University on a United States Army ROTC scholarship as well as academic scholarship, and went on to be commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Army's Field Artillery Branch.Ellis spent the next ten years working in the field of chemistry, eight years of which were as an environmental chemist at Rollins Engineering Services.

Ellis has lived in Louisiana and California, and currently resides in Friendswood, Texas with his wife, Erania. They have a daughter, Chaney, and a son, Tanner.

Chaney is an aspiring rap artist and has produced a positive, parent-friendly CD about school and drugs titled Off the Chain.

Ted Ellis maintained a passion for art that preceded his professional art career; he painted throughout his time in the Army and as an environmental chemist, generally working out of a studio in his garage. His first commissions were produced for two co-workers at Rollins. They had wanted to purchase the piece that he was then working on, but he refused and instead offered to paint them two similar pieces, which they purchased for $40.

When he first got started, Ellis passed on an opportunity to do work for the J. C. Penney catalog because he was too busy, but ultimately found success in a similar publication.

Ellis published his first prints through Market Arts' Dan Rose in Houston, but his art career took off when he noticed that his wife's Avon boutique magazine, targeted at African-Americans, lacked any art. He sent Avon a proposal which they accepted, and through the magazine he sold 42,610 signed prints of Thee Baptism. Since he was still working as an engineer at the time, he autographed the tens-of-thousands of prints during his lunch-break.

After quitting his job as an engineer in 1996, Ellis competed against 500 others for, and won, a 1998 Walt Disney Studios commission for art in honor of Black History Month. The piece was used in the 1999 celebration at Epcot Center and appeared on T-shirts, souvenir-mugs, and posters.

When he first got started, Ellis quickly realized that talent was not alone enough after he had to approach 30–40 galleries until he was picked up by two, one of which closed down. He says that "it's a lot of marketing, planning, exhibiting and a lot of rejection".

Ellis has affiliated with and had art commissioned by corporations like Walt Disney Studios, Minute Maid, Coca-Cola, Marathon Oil, ExxonMobil, State Farm Insurance, Merck Pharmaceutical, J. C. Penney, Southland Corporation, and Avon Products, Philip Morris USA and Integrity Music.

Surviving Katrina, inspired by the hope he saw in a lone man rebuilding in New Orleans in the days after Hurricane Katrina/whose flag represents the need for the nation to unite behind those rebuilding.

Ted Ellis and his wife are both natives of New Orleans, and much of his art along with his passion for art are inspired by the vibrant city. As a young man, he would search the colorful French Quarter for subjects to paint. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the devastation of parts of the city, the city's role in his art drastically changed so as to reflect the story of hope and rebirth that he saw in the disaster.

On the night before the storm hit Louisiana, the Ellis home in Texas was a refuge for 10 New Orleans families, 50 people in all. After the storm, Ellis helped fly home friends stranded outside New Orleans, and he organized colleagues in the art community behind the relief effort.

In Life Begins Anew, a father holds a baby above floodwaters while another man reaches out to take the child. Ellis describes the scene as symbolizing the promise of a new beginning for those who survived Katrina and its aftermath.

As its title indicates, the Katrina: The Hope, Healing and Rebirth of New Orleans collection was for Ellis about showing the power of art to assist the healing process: "The largest piece I did is about how life begins anew and how a person can find hope even after such devastation. I want this work to be uplifting, to be a fresh breath of life for the community."

In 2009, Ted Ellis produced an exhibit focusing on the theme of African-American history in light of slavery and emancipation. The exhibit, "American Slavery: The Reason Why We're Here", tied into the June tenth commemoration of slavery's abolition in the State of Texas. It was located at and included tours of the historic residence of horticulturist Henry Stringfellow, an innovator in organic gardening who was enlightened in how he employed of freedmen. Ellis began the series of works at a 2006 exhibition at the same house.

The exhibit's more than 20 paintings were painted with brush and fingers, and Ellis sometimes added a collage of documents. The exhibit included images of the transportation of slaves, the industry of slavery in crop production, and the abolition of slavery.

The painting Free At Last includes depictions of Buffalo soldiers, Harriet Tubman, the year "1865", a mighty oak, and in the background, their heads bowed in prayer, the figures of the current owner and restorer of the house, Sam Collins III, and his wife and children. The exhibit also displayed Ellis' famous depiction of Barack Obama, Obama, the 44th President.

Ellis' art was featured at a 2011 exhibition at the Rosa Parks Library and Museum. The Museum, at Troy University in Montgomery, Alabama, hosted the exhibit, called Our History, Heritage, and Culture: An American Story, the Art of Ted Ellis, as part of its celebration of Black History Month.

T. Ellis has been pictorially documenting African-American lifestyle, history and culture for thirty years. Ellis paintings are in the permanent collection of the DuSable museum, Charles Wright museum, the McKenna museum, Free People of Color Museum, and the Amistad Research Center.
Ted Ellis views education as one of his primary missions, and he is involved with several educational initiatives. He has a run a number of art workshops with children, including drawing and touching up the school mural which local sixth-graders paint every year, and joining with his wife Erania to illustrate while she reads aloud to children from books about topics like the Buffalo Soldiers. When working with children with autism, he employs a strategy of engaging the children's creativity in a non-judgemental setting where there is no wrong way for them to express themselves; he hopes to put their art on display at the Houston Children's Museum.

Ted Ellis considers himself to be a social, political and spiritual artist as well as educator and "creative historian". "I paint subjects that are representative of the many facets of American life as I know it" says Ellis. "I like to think of myself as a creative historian. I was put here to record history...all aspects of American culture and heritage. My sole purpose has always been to educate through my art".

Source:
Wikipedia, 2020