Charles Bryan Ryan
Nov. 14, 1909 — Nov. 27, 2001
Charles Bryan Ryan of Tumalo died Tuesday of natural causes. He was 92.
No service will be held.
Mr. Ryan was born Nov. 14, 1909, in Fort Jones, Calif., to Charles and Emma (Barr) Ryan. He attended the University of Oregon. He married Rhonda Gollehur on Jan. 1, 1942.
He served in the Army in the 10th Mountain Division. He taught at the Army University in Florence, Italy. He was honorably discharged on May 8, 1946, as a First Lieutenant.
Mr. Ryan worked as a professor of art at the University of Oregon.
He retired in 1976.
Survivors include his wife of Tumalo; and a nephew, Jeffrey Mills of Tualatin.
Memorial contributions may be made to Central Oregon Hospice, 2698 NE Courtney Drive, Bend 97701.
Niswonger, Reynolds and Tabor Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
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Correction - His wife's name was Rhoda Gollehur Ryan
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The works of a lifetime
The art of Tumalo's Charles Bryan Ryan has gained recognition he never sought
Andrew Moore /
After retiring from his art professorship at the University of Oregon in 1976, Charles Bryan Ryan moved to Tumalo, never to paint again.
Having spent 30 years introducing theory and technique to U of O art students, Ryan was ready to indulge his other passion: the outdoors. He joined the Over the Hill Gang, a local senior ski club, and until his death in 2001 at age 92, Ryan hiked, camped and reveled in the area's natural beauty, according to family friend Sandra Miller.
In 2003, Rhoda Ryan called Miller, owner of Frame Design and Sunbird Gallery in Bend, and asked what she should do with her late husband's artwork. She had sold the family home and was preparing an estate sale in advance of her move to an assisted-living facility.
Miller obliged her friend, and found Ryan's paintings stacked unceremoniously in the couple's garage, left by the late artist to gather dust. Upon reviewing the art, Miller was awestruck.
”All (the paintings) were dusty and dirty, but all these wonderful colors came out,” Miller said. ”My first feeling was 'Oh my God, this is a group of paintings we really need to show people.'”
And so with Rhoda Ryan's permission, Miller began cataloging Ryan's work. What she discovered was a comprehensive collection of modern art that ranged from geometric abstractions to Cezanne-inspired landscapes, amassed from Ryan's long teaching career. Many of the paintings are thickly painted, in the impasto style, rendered with complementary colors to add tonal effects, Miller said.
”You can't just put paint on if you don't know what you are doing. I mean you can, but it won't turn out like this,” said Miller of the exhibit.
After a year was spent cleaning, cataloging and framing the art, often using frames built by Ryan and left in a similar dusty stack, Miller hung the work in The Gallery in the Pinckney Center for the Arts at Central Oregon Community College in October of 2003.
From there, the exhibit traveled to the Coos Art Museum in Coos Bay. M.J. Koreiva, the executive director of the museum, described Ryan as an influential contemporary artist.
”His work is very reflective of mid-1950s and mid-'60s art work,” Koreiva said. ”Contemporary works of the '50s are now looked back upon as holding the test of time.”
The exhibit is now back in Central Oregon, hanging at the Bend Public Library through July (see ”If You Go”). It includes mostly oil paintings, but also pastels, drawings, prints, lithographs and sketches.
”He was definitely a product of the age,” Miller said. ”I also think that he was ahead of his time insofar as he was teaching the art aesthetic of cubism, and elements that came from the later part of the 1800s and early 1900s.”
Ryan was born in 1909 in Fort Jones, Calif., a small Northern California town in the shadow of Mount Shasta. At the U of O, he earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts in 1939, and a master's in fine arts the following year. He was then hired as a teaching assistant in the university's zoology department, according to the exhibit's biography of Ryan, before World War II intervened.
As an avid outdoorsman, Ryan was recruited to join the Army's famed 10th Mountain Division, the ”ski troops.” Among those he served with was Mount Bachelor founder Bill Healy.
When the division was ordered to the Italian front, Lt. Ryan took advantage of his relocation to study art, leading fellow soldiers on tours of the region's art and architectural highlights. Immediately after the war, Ryan stayed overseas to teach art at the University of Florence in Italy.
He returned to Oregon in 1946, taking up an art instructor position with the U of O, and stayed with the university until his retirement.
Through the U of O, Ryan developed a friendship with Buckminster Fuller, the renowned 20th-century architect, scientist and philosopher. It was a relationship that deeply affected both Ryan's work and his life. In the exhibit at the library is a letter from Ryan to Fuller, addressed to ”Bucky.”
”Ryan was a good friend of Fuller's,” Miller said. ”He took on a lot of his ideas and theories, such as how strength is created by certain geometric formations, and (Ryan) built examples of these principles as teaching aids for his students.”
According to Miller, more than 500 of these geometric pieces are included in Stanford University's Buckminster Fuller archive. She also found them in abundance at the Ryan home, hanging from the ceiling like mobiles.
Ryan also put Fuller's theories to work at home, building one of Fuller's signature geodesic domes for a home during the 1960s outside of Eugene.
As with Fuller, learning was a real passion for Ryan, Miller said, and teaching provided him a creative force. Miller believes that most of Ryan's works were painted in class alongside his students, as he attempted to illustrate theories and provoke experimentation.
When Ryan was done teaching, he took his work home and left it. He had had a few showings of his work over the course of his life, but his motivation wasn't material, Miller said, nor was he inclined to seek recognition.
”I think he was born in a time when you were either good or you weren't,” Miller said. ”Marketing wasn't a big deal. They recognized you or they didn't.”
Miller said Ryan's position as an art teacher allowed him to fully develop as an artist, enjoying ample time to paint and freedom from the need to sell his work.
”He had the time to concentrate on art as he taught and he was not expected to show his work,” Miller said. ”I think all his works were to educate himself and to know that he could do it, and to discover things for himself and then pass his discoveries on to his students.
”He was a thoughtful, philosophical man but his art was very personal,” Miller added. ”I don't get a sense that he gushed about nature and art. The expression of who he was came through in his art and his teaching.”
What: An exhibit of artwork by the late Tumalo resident and University of Oregon art professor Charles Bryan Ryan
When: Through July 31
Where: Bend Public Library, 601 NW Wall St., Bend
Cost: Free
Contact: 617-7040
After retiring from his art professorship at the University of Oregon in 1976, Charles Bryan Ryan moved to Tumalo, never to paint again.
Having spent 30 years introducing theory and technique to U of O art students, Ryan was ready to indulge his other passion: the outdoors. He joined the Over the Hill Gang, a local senior ski club, and until his death in 2001 at age 92, Ryan hiked, camped and reveled in the area's natural beauty, according to family friend Sandra Miller.
In 2003, Rhoda Ryan called Miller, owner of Frame Design and Sunbird Gallery in Bend, and asked what she should do with her late husband's artwork. She had sold the family home and was preparing an estate sale in advance of her move to an assisted-living facility.
Miller obliged her friend, and found Ryan's paintings stacked unceremoniously in the couple's garage, left by the late artist to gather dust. Upon reviewing the art, Miller was awestruck.
”All (the paintings) were dusty and dirty, but all these wonderful colors came out,” Miller said. ”My first feeling was 'Oh my God, this is a group of paintings we really need to show people.'”
And so with Rhoda Ryan's permission, Miller began cataloging Ryan's work. What she discovered was a comprehensive collection of modern art that ranged from geometric abstractions to Cezanne-inspired landscapes, amassed from Ryan's long teaching career. Many of the paintings are thickly painted, in the impasto style, rendered with complementary colors to add tonal effects, Miller said.
”You can't just put paint on if you don't know what you are doing. I mean you can, but it won't turn out like this,” said Miller of the exhibit.
After a year was spent cleaning, cataloging and framing the art, often using frames built by Ryan and left in a similar dusty stack, Miller hung the work in The Gallery in the Pinckney Center for the Arts at Central Oregon Community College in October of 2003.
From there, the exhibit traveled to the Coos Art Museum in Coos Bay. M.J. Koreiva, the executive director of the museum, described Ryan as an influential contemporary artist.
”His work is very reflective of mid-1950s and mid-'60s art work,” Koreiva said. ”Contemporary works of the '50s are now looked back upon as holding the test of time.”
The exhibit is now back in Central Oregon, hanging at the Bend Public Library through July (see ”If You Go”). It includes mostly oil paintings, but also pastels, drawings, prints, lithographs and sketches.
”He was definitely a product of the age,” Miller said. ”I also think that he was ahead of his time insofar as he was teaching the art aesthetic of cubism, and elements that came from the later part of the 1800s and early 1900s.”
Ryan was born in 1909 in Fort Jones, Calif., a small Northern California town in the shadow of Mount Shasta. At the U of O, he earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts in 1939, and a master's in fine arts the following year. He was then hired as a teaching assistant in the university's zoology department, according to the exhibit's biography of Ryan, before World War II intervened.
As an avid outdoorsman, Ryan was recruited to join the Army's famed 10th Mountain Division, the ”ski troops.” Among those he served with was Mount Bachelor founder Bill Healy.
When the division was ordered to the Italian front, Lt. Ryan took advantage of his relocation to study art, leading fellow soldiers on tours of the region's art and architectural highlights. Immediately after the war, Ryan stayed overseas to teach art at the University of Florence in Italy.
He returned to Oregon in 1946, taking up an art instructor position with the U of O, and stayed with the university until his retirement.
Through the U of O, Ryan developed a friendship with Buckminster Fuller, the renowned 20th-century architect, scientist and philosopher. It was a relationship that deeply affected both Ryan's work and his life. In the exhibit at the library is a letter from Ryan to Fuller, addressed to ”Bucky.”
”Ryan was a good friend of Fuller's,” Miller said. ”He took on a lot of his ideas and theories, such as how strength is created by certain geometric formations, and (Ryan) built examples of these principles as teaching aids for his students.”
According to Miller, more than 500 of these geometric pieces are included in Stanford University's Buckminster Fuller archive. She also found them in abundance at the Ryan home, hanging from the ceiling like mobiles.
Ryan also put Fuller's theories to work at home, building one of Fuller's signature geodesic domes for a home during the 1960s outside of Eugene.
As with Fuller, learning was a real passion for Ryan, Miller said, and teaching provided him a creative force. Miller believes that most of Ryan's works were painted in class alongside his students, as he attempted to illustrate theories and provoke experimentation.
When Ryan was done teaching, he took his work home and left it. He had had a few showings of his work over the course of his life, but his motivation wasn't material, Miller said, nor was he inclined to seek recognition.
”I think he was born in a time when you were either good or you weren't,” Miller said. ”Marketing wasn't a big deal. They recognized you or they didn't.”
Miller said Ryan's position as an art teacher allowed him to fully develop as an artist, enjoying ample time to paint and freedom from the need to sell his work.
”He had the time to concentrate on art as he taught and he was not expected to show his work,” Miller said. ”I think all his works were to educate himself and to know that he could do it, and to discover things for himself and then pass his discoveries on to his students.
”He was a thoughtful, philosophical man but his art was very personal,” Miller added. ”I don't get a sense that he gushed about nature and art. The expression of who he was came through in his art and his teaching.”
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