Do you have a painting by William Ranken ? Some of his work remains unidentified due to the fact that he nearly always signed his work with his monogram 'WBER'. Unfortunately, the monogram itself is somewhat indistinct and has often proved difficult to interpret. The image below is typical of Ranken's monogram.

Celebration !

Usually we use this part of the website to show a new image of a Ranken painting which we would like your help with for identification or location purposes. This month we are changing this format to one of a celebration of Ranken's interior paintings. This celebration has been has been instigated by an article entitled 'Grand Schemer' which appears in the December 2007 issue of 'The World of Interiors' magazine. The article concerns a book entitled 'Colour and Interior Decoration' written by the influential interior designer, Basil Ionides and published by Country Life in 1926. The book is illustrated with eight colour plates, each one showing a Ranken watercolour of an interior designed by Ionides for the 'smart set' of the time. Ionides discusses the colour schemes in these interiors and provides a detailed guide to lasting good taste and wonderful upper-class style.

We believe that this is the first time Ranken's work has been published in such a wide reaching format since his death in 1941. We have included images of some of the paintings which appear in the book below, we hope you will enjoy them.

'A Grey Room in the Hon. Lionel Holland's House'

dated 1925

'A Pink Drawing-Room at Howbridge Hall, Witham'

dated 1925

'A Green Drawing-Room in the House of the Hon. Mrs Guy Bethel'

dated 1925

'A Red Room in the House of Mr Martin de Selincourt'

dated 1925

'A Blue Dining-Room at Howbridge Hall, Witham'

dated 1925

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© 2005–2007

Wendy & Gordon Hawksley

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Rights of images retained by original source.