Education
He attended Eton College and then proceeded to The Slade School of Art under the tutelage of Henry Tonks.
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William Ranken
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Ranken"s first exhibition in 1904 at the Carfax Gallery in London was well-received by artists and art critics. He befriended Wilfrid Gabriel de Glehn and John Singer Sargent. At the outbreak of World War One, William was living in his studio in Chelsea, a short distance from Sargent"s studio, with whom he may have ventured to America during the war years.
While in America, Sargent introduced him to Isabella Stewart Gardner and he received commissions to paint portraits of the wealthy, including the Whitneys, Vanderbilts and Havermeyers.
His output became prodigious as he worked in watercolors, oils and pastels. Returning to Great Britain in the 1920s he painted many portraits of the Royal family and the Aristocracy, as well as the interiors of their homes.
Ranken"s paintings are held in a large number of museum and public collections, including Southampton City Art Gallery, Portsmouth Museum, Bradford Museum, Reading Museum, Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, Northampton Museum, Derby Museum, Leeds City Museum, National Museums Northern Ireland, Glasgow Museums, City of Edinburgh Council and the Government Art Collection.
