Bill Rane
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Bill Rane (William Harve Rane) was born on March 3, 1927, and died on September 2, 2005. He was an American painter, poet, author and philosopher.
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[edit] Early life
Rane was born in Bend, Oregon to a rural mining, farming and ranching family of very limited means. His family was essentially Jack Mormon, meaning they were of unspecific denomination, or "renegade". He was one of four sons born to Beatrice and August Rane. After his birth, his family lived in Garden Valley, Idaho. At the age of seventeen, he joined the United States Navy and was aboard a Navy ship in the Atlantic destined for the Battle of Japan when President Harry S. Truman ordered the first battle use of the new atomic bomb in war with the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. He returned to San Francisco after World War IIand later attended Boise Junior College (now Boise State University) on the G.I. Bill. He received an A.A. degree from that institution; however, it is not clear if this was awarded immediately following his attendance or later as a result of his art career.
[edit] Beginnings
Even as a young man, Rane drew and showed strong inclination to the visual arts. During his time in the navy, he became known among the crew for his skills and was often asked to draw Christmas cards and various other things for his fellow crew members. Later, he worked in Guatemala as a political cartoonist, where he created a cartoon strip called "Life in Atlantis" that ran in Guatemala's largest newspaper. He moved from California to Tucson, Arizona; southern New Mexico; Coapala, Mexico; Toronto, Canada; and Socorro, New Mexico before settling in Taos, New Mexico. He held a variety of jobs, including teaching art at the New Mexico Institue of Mining and Technology and opening an Albuquerque restaurant called the Central Torta. An advertisement for the restaurant, written by Rane, reads: "Poetry sometimes - fabulous paintings! Amazing!!!!! Botanical gardens. Real live birds. Resurrected jazz-men. Just What Albuquerque Needs. Palace of Night Chickens! Meets Code!"[1]
When he first settled in Taos, he was very poor and relatively unknown. Taos, however, embraced him and he found, for the first time in his life, a level of acceptance that brought great growth to his artist expression.
[edit] Taos career
Rane was a contemporary of R. C. Gorman[2]. Gorman often referred to Rane as his favorite Taos artist. Beginning with the display of his work at the Gallerie Solari in Taos and then later at Bryan's Gallery on the Taos plaza, Rane presented a series of one-man shows. The shows involved the display of at least twenty new paintings at a time done in oil along with other works such as monotypes. His work, particularly early in his career, centered on oil on canvas, although once he was established in Taos he also worked in other mediums. His moody and reflective painting 'Taos Window' was awarded the Taos Spring Art prize and was the starting point for a limited edition of prints.
[edit] Personal life
Rane met his first wife, Carmen Monsanto, while attending Boise Junior College. Monsanto was a Spanish teacher at the school. A Guatemalan native, her family was prominent politically in her home country. Soon after their marriage the two moved to Guatemala. Together they had three children, Rosa Beatrice, Randolph Jose, and Ivan William Rane. Later he returned to California and he and Carmen divorced.
He met his second wife, Judith Johnson, a "potter, weaver, actress, and peace activist,"[3] during a party on his house boat in Sausalito, California. They were married only eight days after their first meeting. Together they had five children, Anson Elias, August Jonas, Anna Katherine, Canto Omar, and Aren Sven. Rane was an artist of unusual vision and one of his children has said that he "often looked beyond us but never ignored us." For Bill, family life with his eight children and extended cadre of artists and friends was a very important part of his work and expression. His studio home, which he built by hand with his family and which he vowed to "never finish," located on Taos' southern Blueberry Hill with its vast view of Taos Valley and Taos Mountain, was sometimes called the "Grand Central Station of the Taos Artists' Scene" in those years, the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
[edit] Paintings
According to the artist's website, Rane "married the classical with the contemporary. His timeless textured canvases are full of myths and glyphs and codices. His unique style encompasses goddesses and geese, pelicans and pomegranates, mythical animals and sea creatures. His range is broad - from the intuit of ancient cave paintings to the embrace of elaborate sea scrolls."[4]
Rane's use of innovative materials in his paintings is notable. Earlier in his life Rane painted on masonite. He never worked in acrylic but enjoyed using house paints, spray paint, and a myriad of other materials in his oil paintings including as he often said, dog or cat hair, which was sometimes incorporated inadvertently in his paintings and which he would often leave on the canvas, particularly if he liked its affect or the texture or surface it left. He particularly treasured marks left by the wagging of the animal's tail against the fresh oil paint but also enjoyed finding bugs, dust or anything that added to the surface texture. In Rane's own words, "You've got to have an accident to make a good painting. You've planned it this way but the dog fell in it or the paint smeared or something. Wow. Now you've got something to deal with. How are you going to incorporate that? Should you incorporate that? A good painting should have this. It should have a place where it escapes from you." [1]
Over his lifetime, Rane created an enormous number of paintings. He sold the large majority of the paintings while he was alive and his collectors span the globe but also include many Taos and New Mexico locals. Many individuals who would not generally allocate monies for the purchase of art nonetheless found a way, and a desire, to collect Rane's work. However, his work was not widely collected by museums until after his death. His collectors included astronauts, politicians, physicists, psychologists, waiters, and other artists. After his death his widow, Judith Rane, of Winetka, Illinois and Durango, Colorado continues to operate the Rane Gallery on Ledoux Street in Taos and, while the gallery continues to have some original paintings available, it now sells mostly giclee prints.
[edit] Citations
- ^ Foster, Lenny. Decorating the Day: A Conversation with Bill Rane. 2005.
