Interviewee: Ranulph Bye
Date of birth: June 17, 1916
Interviewer: Louise Collins (WBUX radio show host)
Interview date: May 15, 1985
Interview location: unknown, probably at the Rodman House, headquarters of the Bucks County Council of the Arts (BCCA)
Interview length: 30 minutes
Time span discussed: Ranulph’s career, primarily 1960s to interview date
Summary: This promotion for an exhibition is a live radio interview of Ranulph Bye. It is the clearest and most helpful interview of the three in the STHS collection in terms of the artist talking about why he chose watercolor as his primary medium, the techniques he used during his painting, and why he chose two of the major themes of his later works: railroad stations and Victorian house architecture.
Time markers:
00:00 – discussion of Ranulph’s name and the background story of both the Bye and Ranulph names
02:20 – one-man exhibition of Ranulph’s work at Rodman House
06:40 – advertising break
09:28 – how Ranulph choose his subjects, early career jobs for regular income, professional painter in 1950s and 1960s
11:40 – travels, his wife Glenda, also an artist, dialogue enhances both of their work
12:40 – artists’ personal choices; his critique on composition and design
13:10 – interest in architecture, railroad stations, where he found them; prints sold by Reading Railroad in the 1960s
14:50 – trouble finding a publisher, American Heritage article about stations; book called The Vanishing Depot
16:45 – A Victorian Sketchbook, second book, on Victorian architecture, traveling the East Coast, discussion on the Victorian style
20:20 – Ranulph’s sister, Margaret Bye Richie; her Ph.D. in architecture studies, her writing the text of The Victoria Sketchbook
22:30 – advertising break
23:50 – watercolors: why Ranulph chose watercolor, his struggle to master the medium; reflections on the careful planning of his work, techniques, based on drawing, building up of paint
27:47 – recap, open mike comment
