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Specializing in 19th - 21st Century American & European Art.  Learn more >

Established in 1976, Mary Ran Gallery, a Fine Art Gallery, has contributed greatly to the local and global 19th - 21st century American and European art market. Our gallery is located in Cincinnati, Ohio's historic neighborhood, Hyde Park, on Erie Avenue. Our mission is to bring to our clientele and artists alike an experience that is as brilliant as the pieces that we carry in our gallery setting.

Featured Works

EDWIN LORD WEEKS (1849-1903)

Edwin Lord Weeks was one of the foremost American Orientalist painters of the late nineteenth century. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, he developed an early passion for art and travel, supported by his family's success in the spice and tea trade. After studying in Paris under renowned academic painters Léon Bonnat and Jean-Léon Gérôme, Weeks established himself as a master of highly detailed scenes depicting the architecture, landscapes, and daily life of North Africa, the Middle East, and India. His extensive travels provided firsthand inspiration for many of his most celebrated works.

Weeks is particularly recognized for his vivid portrayals of India, where he traveled extensively during the 1880s and 1890s. Unlike many artists who relied on secondhand accounts, Weeks painted from direct observation, often completing sketches and studies on location before transforming them into large studio compositions. His paintings capture bustling street scenes, grand palaces, sacred temples, and colorful marketplaces with remarkable accuracy and atmospheric light. Works such as Venares Street Scene exemplify his ability to combine architectural precision with lively human activity, creating romantic yet highly detailed views of the East that appealed to American and European audiences alike.

Throughout his career, Weeks exhibited regularly at the Paris Salon and received numerous international honors, including the prestigious French Legion of Honor in 1896. In addition to painting, he was an accomplished travel writer and illustrator, publishing From the Black Sea Through Persia and India in 1895, which documented many of his journeys. Today, Weeks is regarded as one of the most important American Orientalist painters, and his works remain highly sought after by collectors and museums for their technical mastery, historical significance, and evocative depictions of nineteenth-century life across Asia and North Africa.

Paul Sawyier

(1865 - 1917)

Paul Sawyier was the best impressionist painter in Kentucky at the turn of the 19th century. Sawyier was born at Table Rock in Madison County, Ohio on March 23, 1865, on his Grandfather Sawyier's farm. When he was five years old, his parents, Dr. Nathaniel and Ellen Wingate Sawyier, moved with their four children to Frankfort, Kentucky.

Paul Sawyier's artistic talent became apparent during his early years. At the age of 19, in 1884, Sawyier studied portraiture under Thomas S. Noble at the Cincinnati Art Academy. After the Academy, Paul briefly held a job as a hemp salesman, but the pull of art proved irresistible. Sawyier went to New York City for further training at the Art Student's League. In 1889 and 1890, he studied under William Merritt Chase and was able to observe the famous portrait painter John Singer Sargent. In 1890, Sawyier studied for a year under Frank Duveneck, in Covington, Kentucky, who was at the height of his national fame as an oil portrait painter. Chase and Duveneck were friends and had painted together in Europe.

In 1893, Sawyier went to the Chicago World's Fair Colombian Exhibition where some of his works were in the State of Kentucky display. It was at this exhibition that Impressionism was formally introduced in the United States, and Sawyier, influenced to become an "American Impressionist" became one of the few proponents of Impressionism in Kentucky. He also found his first taste of real popularity in 1893. A covered bridge he had captured in a series of copperplate etchings was closed, and suddenly those etchings were much in demand.

Since 1940, Sawyier exhibits have been held at Eastern Kentucky University, Maysville Museum, Georgetown College, University of Kentucky, Kentucky Historical Society, Paul Sawyier Galleries, Inc. (Frankfurt, Kentucky), and twice at the J.B. Speed Museum and Shakertown Village. Four volumes have been written about Sawyier's life and works. These books are all based on the research of historian Dr. W. R. Jillson, who in the late 1930's, talked with surviving Sawyier family members and any individuals who personally knew Paul Sawyier.