BILL RANE (1927 - 2005)

Bill Rane was born in Bend, Oregon March 3, 1927. He grew up in Crouch and Garden Valley, Idaho. Even as a young boy he was recognized for his artistic talents. After time in the US Navy during WW II, Bill studied art and literature at Boise Junior College, San Francisco Art Institute and the University of California - Berkeley.

His frequent travels to Latin America made a lasting impression upon his soul. He lived in Guatemala in the late 1940¹s and early 50¹s when he was married to Carmen Lish, a native Guatemalan. Together they had three children; Rosa Beatrice, Randolph Jose, and William Ivan - all of whom became highly influenced by the arts as well as fluent speakers of Spanish - including Bill.

The late 1950¹s found him single in San Francisco and Sausalito as part of the beatnik community - known as a painter of renown, a roustabout, a raconteur and a steady feature in the early Sausalito Arts Festivals. In September of 1958 he married Judy Johnson (Judith Rane) after a six day courtship. They were married for forty seven years and together had five children; Anson Elias, August Jonas, Anna Katherine, Canto Omar and Aren Sven.

During those years, the family traveled extensively to Mexico. Bill¹s love for Latin America, its exotic treasures including textures and colors, markets and flowers, can be seen in a great number of his paintings. As an oil painter, he loved to let the globs of oil paint build up on a canvas - weaving, dripping and dropping, randomly, from the steady hand of a master painter. His work, often stylized figurative women, is laden with myths and sylphs and codices.

Bill often liked to refer to ³The Literature of Paint². He was a great reader - a lover of metaphor, a delver into the Greek Classics and a great promoter of ³The Every Man/Woman². In his work one can always see the footprint (or the heartbeat) of humanity¹s reach for beauty and culture - not unlike the reach of the master himself.