William Ranney

William Tylee Ranney was a 19th-century American painter, known for his depictions of Western life, sporting scenery, historical subjects and portraiture. In his 20-year career, he made 150 paintings and 80 drawings, and is considered the first major genre painter to work in New Jersey, and one of the most important pre-Civil War American painters. His work is on display in several museums across the United States. One of his contemporaries opined, "A specimen of Ranney is indispensable wherever a collection of American art exists."

Ranney resumed his artistic endeavors in Brooklyn, becoming a self-taught oil painter, having never received formal training. In 1838 he publicly exhibited his paintings for the first time at the National Academy of Design in New York City. He received an award for his first genre painting A Courting Scene, which was exhibited at the New York Mechanics' Institute Fair. He traveled back and forth between North Carolina and New York from 1839 and 1842. In 1843, he opened a studio in New York City, where he advertised as a portrait painter, though few of the works from this period have been identified.

In 1847 he moved to Weehawken, marrying Margaret Agnes O'Sullivan the following year. He and his wife briefly moved back to New York City around 1850.

In 1853 they crossed back into New Jersey, settling permanently with their two sons at a 14-room homestead in the growing artist community of West Hoboken, New Jersey, which today is the southern portion of Union City. The homestead, which was located at Twelfth Street and Palisade Avenue atop the then-rural Hudson Palisades, and overlooked the Manhattan skyline, was characterized by Ranney's interests in both painting and Western life. It included a two-story, glassed-in studio, and a stable for horses that Ranney, an avid horseback rider, painted in many of his works. Henry T. Tuckerman, in his Book of the Artists, described Ranney's studio thus:

It was so constructed as to receive animals; guns, pistols, and cutlasses hung on the walls; and these, with curious saddles and primitive riding gear, might lead a visitor to imagine he had entered a pioneer's cabin or border chieftain's hut; such an idea would, however, have been once dispelled by glance at the many sketches and studies which proclaimed that an artist, and not a bushranger, had here found a home.

Ranney was a regular contributor and an associate member of the National Academy of Design and the American Art Union, both based in New York. He also painted historical scenes, such as those of the American Revolution. He mostly depicted the everyday lives of the affected populace rather than heroic battle scenes. Among his subjects of local landscapes was Hackensack Meadows.

By 1846, his work began to show the influences of his experiences in Texas, including frontier backdrops depicting the Rocky Mountains. He featured pioneers, hunters, trappers, and explorers before the West was more widely settled by European Americans. Among these are The Old Oaken Bucket, The Match Boy, Prairie Burial, Scouting Party, Hunting Wild Horses and Trapper's Last Shot, which are straightforward presentations of everyday subjects, lacking overt sentiment.

Ranney enjoyed duck hunting, which is reflected in some of his paintings noted for their solidly constructed, almost sculpture-like figures. His most popular and requested work is his 1850 painting On the Wing, which portrays a sportsman with dead game at his feet, about to shoot down his next target. Ranney produced at least four different versions of this print, the most recognized of which was reserved for the Butler Institute of American Art. It was published in the gift book Ornaments of Memory in 1856 and 1857. This version is set in a more windblown environment, noted for the contrast generated with the stillness of the human figures within it. The portrayal of the outdoorsman in On the Wing contributed to the era's nationalistic imagery. Mark Thistelthwaite of the Butler Institute, describes this piece as:

Capital, in its style. Sportsman and dog are both in the best spirits, and are transferred to the canvas without losing anything of their keen relish of the sport." The appeal of Ranney's painting lies in its convincing portrayal of the alert, poised hunter and the tense, crouching boy and dog, all motionless, yet charged with potential energy. Dead game on the ground underscore the figures' vitality. Ranney plants the compactly rendered, centralized group in the midst of wind-blown marsh vegetation.

Ranney, who adored the rural, marshy lands that typified the area in the 19th century, also enjoyed fishing. Among the fellow artists and residents he befriended were Hoboken founding father Colonel John Stevens III, who organized the first ferry system between New York and Hoboken. As Ranney was an avid cricket player, he was one of the founders of New York Cricket Club, and one of its top scorers. The club met at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken. He also played Hoboken's Fox Hill, which today is Columbus Park, and the high school field between 9th and 11th streets on Grand Street. Ranney played cricket until 1854.

Text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2023