William Ranney: American Frontier Paintings

Forging an American Identity: The Art of William Ranney will present the work of one of the most important American genre artists of the first half of the 19th.
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Thursday, April 12, 6 p. Lecture Familiarizing the Past: With his genre paintings, or scenes of everyday life, Ranney rendered history not as remote and idealized, but as familiar and real. Admission to the permanent collection is free.

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The Art of William Ranney. About the Artist William Ranney painted evocative scenes of everyday life, known as genre paintings, as well as historical subjects and portraiture. Public Programs Admission is free.

Philadelphia Museum of Art - Exhibitions - Forging an American Identity: The Art of William Ranney

Family Fundays are made possible in part by Wortham-Fort Worth. Exhibition Admission Museum members: Ranney served nearly nine months in all, mostly near the town of Columbia now West Columbia , and received bounty grants in addition to his army salary. After he left the army he remained in Texas and made sketches that provided the basis for some of his later paintings.


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Ranney returned north in the spring of and apparently continued his artistic training there. Later that year he was awarded a diploma for his first genre painting, A Courting Scene , which was exhibited at the New York Mechanics' Institute Fair. Between and he may have returned to North Carolina or possibly to Texas to deal with land claims, but by he was back in New York, where he was listed in the city directories as a portrait painter.

In he moved to Weehawken, New Jersey, where he remained several years.

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It is likely that Ranney lived in New York City briefly in ; by he and his family had settled in West Hoboken, New Jersey, where a number of other artists lived. There he built a large studio to accommodate the many artifacts-buckskin costumes, guns, riding gear-that he had brought back from the West. He also kept a stable that enabled him to observe horses, a prominent feature in his genre scenes. Ranney was a regular contributor to the exhibitions at the National Academy of Design, which elected him an associate member in , and the American Art Union, both in New York.

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He exhibited portraits, sporting and genre scenes, and historical episodes from the American Revolution. By Ranney's paintings began to show the influence of his experiences in Texas and depicted popular western subjects such as the trapper and pioneer. Ranney was buried in Bergen Cemetery. The following year, the Ranney Fund put on an exhibition and sale in New York in order to raise money for Margaret Ranney and her two sons.

Some of the money was used to pay a lien on Ranney's house. Ranney is regarded as one of the most important pre- Civil War American painters, and his paintings are highly prized by Western and early American art collectors. Sixty percent of his paintings are in museums such as the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Huntington Art Gallery in Austin, Texas. Ranney's great-grandson, Ranney Moran, wrote the prologue for the book, Forging an American Identity: The Art of William Ranney.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. William Ranney self-portrait. Van Nostrand Company, Inc.

William Ranney

The New York Times. The Art of William Ranney at Amazon. Retrieved from " https: Views Read Edit View history. In other projects Wikimedia Commons. This page was last edited on 7 September , at By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.