Detail from "Ancient Past-Future World" (1944)

One spring day in 1964, when I was a horse-crazy nine-year-old, I had an encounter that I've never forgotten. I was looking at a rack of jigsaw puzzles at the local Kresge's, and I suddenly found myself facing a box that stood out from all the others. It was an image of a horse, but what a horse! Not a photograph (I had dozens of puzzles like that), but a painting, and one like none I'd ever seen: a black horse with huge dark eyes and gleaming bronze and blue highlights in her coat, flying at full gallop across an eerily beautiful landscape flooded with mist. A golden moon showed faintly through the clouds, and three other horses ran in the background, looking as spectral and mysterious as the one in the foreground.
Its title was "The Handsome Witch".

I bought it, of course, and must have put it together and taken it apart a hundred times. The puzzle eventually went the way of all toys, but I never forgot the strange and beautiful painting.

Flash forward about 20 years: I was browsing in an art dealer's shop, looking through a box of small prints, and suddenly before my eyes was my old friend Handsome Witch, in a print hardly bigger than a notecard. And with her was another small print--another horse by the same artist! This one was a golden-chestnut racking horse, but there was no mistaking the mysterious landscape, the wide eyes, the haunting mood and atmosphere. Its name was "The Copper Queen", and the artist's name was on both prints--Ruth Ray. I was thrilled, and bought them both.

For years since then I have looked for anything on this unforgettable artist and any more work by her.
There's very little information to be had, but what I've found I share here.

I would be delighted to hear from anyone who knows more, or has more examples of her ghostly, lovely horses.
(above: "The Moon Eaters", 1976)

A short biography of the artist, written by her daughter-in-law, Christine Lacerenza.

An excellent site dedicated to Ruth Ray's art has just appeared on the Web: Ruth Ray, American Artist

Top row left, "The Handsome Witch"; top row right,"The Copper Queen".
Bottom row left, "The Storm King"; bottom row right, "Golden Ruler".

===(click on images and use magnifying icon to see prints full size.)===

These are 11 x 14 color prints produced in 1960 by Donald Art Company of New York. "Handsome Witch" and "Copper Queen" are identical to the small prints I found at that art store back in the 80s, and have the same date and company trademark. Of these four paintings, only two --"Golden Ruler" and "Storm King"--have a visible artist's signature and date: a simple "Ruth Ray 1959".

These and the "Moon Eaters"above are the only actual horse portraits of hers I'm aware of, though horses figure as details in much of her work,
like this "Nocturnal Southwestern Landscape" (1947).

I wonder if there are more?