ORIGINAL OIL PAINTING ON CANVAS "EL COBANO" BY NORMAN, OK ARTIST VICKI RUNGE.  This is an original oil painting on canvas by noted Norman artist Victoria Runge (1).  Titled "El Cobano," its dimensions framed are 24 1/2 inches across and 20 1/2 inches tall.  The opening for the painting in this frame measures 19 1/2 inches across and is 15 1/2 inches tall.  The painting shows a rural homestead in the area of Colima, Mexico.  Runge's paintings are noted for clarity, strong design, sumptuous color and controlled paint application. They demonstrate an excellent sense of light.  Runge's work hangs in Europe and Mexico as well as throughout the U.S.  She exhibited from Kansas City to Santa Fe, including a 1998 one-woman show at the Oklahoma State Capitol.  Her oil, "La Higuera," is a permanent part of Dr. George M. Sutton's "Birds of Mexico" collection at the Kirkpatrick Center in Oklahoma City, and her landscape, "Black Mesa," hangs at the Oklahoma Governor's mansion.  Victoria Runge was born Victoria Jane Stevens on Feb. 20, 1924, in Shawnee, and grew up just outside that city.  At Shawnee High School she studied art under the skillful tutelage of a beloved art teacher, Mrs. Tapp. In 1941 she won the Vanderslice Scholarship to the Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, Mo., in a national high school competition.  The young artist's first year at the Art Institute won recognition for outstanding talent.  After marriage to Norman Runge in Kansas City on Aug. 10, 1942, Vickie continued her studies and worked at Hallmark Cards in the silk screen department, adding the sparkle to greeting cards, her daughter, Norman Jane Bumgarner said.  But soon she had to put art work aside as their first child was born and her husband was sent into World War II. In 1944 and 45 she "did her part for the war" by working as an aeronautical engineering draftsman at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City.  Although Runge never completely stopped painting, the years that followed the war were filled with the challenges of a growing family, but she accumulated about 60 hours of art classes at the University of Oklahoma. As her children grew up and away, Runge returned to her easel in earnest and studied with outstanding artists in Oklahoma and surrounding states.  A founding member of the Norman Art League, she taught for many years at the Norman Senior Citizens Center and at the Firehouse Art Center, where she served as a charter member of the board.  She taught all-media workshops at the Carrizo Lodge in Ruidoso, N.M., and at the University of Oklahoma's Hacienda el Cobano in Colima, Mexico, for many years. She was a founding member of Gallery III in Norman.  In 1974 Runge took a supplementary faculty position at Rose State College, where she taught a senior citizens' art class, until her health began to fail.  She was a member of the Oklahoma Watercolor Association, the Southwestern Watercolor Society, and the Oklahoma Museum of Art.  Victoria Runge died Aug. 17, 2000, at the age of 76, after a heart attack at her home.