Famed for his paintings of Western culture, and also for portraying sporting scenes such as duck hunting, William Tylee Ranney of West Hoboken (now Union City) attracted large audiences to his all-American portraits of mid-century life.
Heavily influenced by his years serving in the Republic Army of Texas during the fight for Texas’ independence from Mexico, Ranney has been widely celebrated as a true American artist of his time for paintings such as “Prairie Burial” and “Scouting Party.”
However, Ranney’s most popular and requested work was “On the Wing” (circa 1850), which portrays a sportsman with dead game at his feet and about to shoot down his next target.
According to the web page of the Butler Institute of American Art, one writer in 1850 deemed the image “capital, in its style. Sportsman and dog are both in the best of spirits, and are transferred to the canvas without losing any of their keen relish of the sport.”
Ranney produced at least four different versions of the widely popular print, but the most recognized version was reserved for the Butler Institute, and even appeared in the gift book Ornaments of Memory in 1856 and 1857.
Although all four versions are nearly identical, the Butler Institute’s version sets the figures in a more windblown environment, which added dramatic contrast to the poised still life of the characters within the portrait.
“On the Wing contributed to the era’s nationalistic imagery with its striking portrayal of vigorous American outdoorsmen in the natural world, enjoying its bounty,” stated the website.
Frontier life
William Tylee Ranney was born on May 9, 1813 in Middletown, Conn., to William and Clarissa Ranney. Although the son of Protestant parents, Ranney converted to Catholicism during the last days of his life.
At the age of 13, Ranney went to live with his uncle in North Carolina and served as an apprentice to a tinsmith in 1826. It is also believed that Ranney developed his first sketches at this time.
He moved to Brooklyn around 1833 to formally study painting and drawing. However, his studies were cut short after the battle of the Alamo in March of 1836.
Ranney enlisted under the command of Capt. C.A.W. Fowler’s First Regiment of Volunteers to fight for the independence of Texas. After serving for nine months, Ranney remained in Texas for a short while before returning to Brooklyn in 1937.
Ranney exhibited his work for the first time that same year at the National Academy of Design in New York City, and also received an award for his first genre painting, “A Courting Scene,” which was exhibited at the New York Mechanics’ Institute Fair.
Afterwards, Ranney traveled back and forth to North Carolina between 1839 and 1842, but remained in New York City by 1943 and was listed in the city directory as a portrait painter.
In Weehawken and ‘West Hoboken’
By 1847 he moved to Weehawken, where he remained for several years, and then married Margaret Agnes O’Sullivan in 1848 in New York. The couple had two boys and permanently moved to the growing artist community of West Hoboken by 1853, to a house located on the west side of Palisade Avenue, which was also several blocks north of the now defunct Palisade News Office.
Ranney continued to flourish in West Hoboken, and built a large studio to accommodate many artifacts of his all American persona from buckskin costumes, guns, and riding gear-that he had brought back from the West.
Ranney also built stables to observe horses, which became a prominent fixture in his genre paintings.
A regular contributor and an associate member of the New York based organizations the National Academy of Design and the American Art Union, Ranney became very well known for his portraits, sporting and genre scenes, as well as depictions of historical episodes of the Revolutionary War.
By 1846, Ranney’s work began to show influences of his experiences out west portraying panoramic frontier backdrops and the popular western subjects of prairie life from hunters to emigration.
His celebrated techniques, including delineation, and use of color captured rugged frontier life on canvas through work such as “Hunting Wild Horses” and “Trapper’s Last Shot.”
Frontiersman remembered
Ranney died at the age of 45 at his West Hoboken home on Nov. 18, 1857 after a long bout with tuberculosis, which at the time was commonly known as consumption.
The following year, the National Academy of Design held an exhibition and sale of his work to provide financial support for his family.
In response to the exhibition a contemporary declared, “A specimen of Ranney is indispensable wherever a collection of American art exists.”
Ranney’s work can still be viewed today at the Corcoran Art Gallery in Washington, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art in Tulsa, and the Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery in Austin.