Ray Harm

• Birth Name — Ray Auvil • Born — 9 November 1926 • Birthplace — Randolph County, West Virginia, U.S. • Died — 9 April 2015 • Place of death — Sonoita, Arizona • Known for — Wildlife paintings • Spouse — Millie

Harm was born Ray Auvil in Randolph County, West Virginia; his father was a concert violinist who also was a woodsman and herbalist. His name was changed to Harm after his parents divorced and his mother remarried to William Harm. He left West Virginia in his mid-teens to become a cowboy in the American West, eventually competing on the rodeo circuit, and also training horses for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. His service in the United States Navy during World War II allowed him to take advantage of the GI Bill for continuing education. Harm used the opportunity to enroll in art school and afterward became a painter. While selling individual paintings, Harm worked in construction and horse training to make ends meet. In 1961 Harm's work attracted the attention of Wood Hannah, a businessman and art collector from Louisville, Kentucky. The two men came up with the idea of making high-quality art prints of Harm's paintings, which would be issued in limited print runs. The idea was a great success and gave birth to a marketing method for art that has brought commercial and financial success to thousands of artists. In 1963, he was appointed the first H. L. Donovan Artist-in-residence at the University of Kentucky. Harm later wrote a weekly nature column for The Louisville Times, and was a popular speaker and lecturer. Harm was a frequent guest on the radio call-in show Metz Here, hosted for many years by Milton Metz on Louisville's WHAS-AM. In his later life, Harm became a sharp critic of artists who copied their works from photographs by tracing directly over them or projecting an image onto a canvas and then tracing. This practice is now widespread throughout the limited-edition art industry. Harm prided himself on basing his paintings on his own sketches taken from direct observations of wildlife. On occasion, Harm said he has used museum models of wildlife to get certain details correct, but otherwise his paintings come directly from his own work. Harm closed production of prints from his major collection in the late 1990s, with 195 pieces in the collection. He continued to do occasional works as fundraisers for various organizations where he continued to work.

Harm and his wife Millie left Kentucky in 1975 to move to Tucson, Arizona, for Millie's health with his stepdaughters Cynthia and Elizabeth, whom he eventually adopted. He owned a guest ranch in Catalina, Arizona, where he led guests riding horses on trail rides into the high desert. He was a naturalist and herbalist like his father. Later, in 1979, Harm divorced and remarried Cathy, who was from Canada. His son, Ray Harm Jr. (better known as "Hap"), lives in Kentucky and sells prints from original works by his father that were not a part of the original major collection. Harm died in Sonoita, Arizona, on April 9, 2015.