Although Granville Redmond (1871-1935) was and still is best known for painting poppy-covered hillsides in Southern California, he grew up, in fact, in the Bay Area. This 10″ x 13″ oil sketch of a view in Marin County (Tiburon or Belvedere, perhaps) is unusual for its looser and simpler style.  The overall form of the 2-1/2″ wide walnut frame is flat, but I eased the sight edge with a convex cushion form carved to echo the texture of the brushwork. I further softened the frame by rounding the corners and articulated them with rounded carved accents. A 1/8″ wide pale gold slip provides accent and resonance with the sunlight.Redmond was born in Philadelphia but his family moved to the Bay Area after he contracted scarlet fever as a toddler. He attended the California School for the Deaf here in Berkeley, which apparently served him well in cultivating his artistic talents, leading to studies with Arthur Mathews at the California School of Design, and later, a grant to attend the Academie Julian in Paris.

After returning from Europe in 1898, Redmond settled in Los Angeles. There he befriended Charlie Chaplin who became a patron. Thanks in part to having studied pantomime at the School for the Deaf, Redmond had a knack for film acting, which Chaplin recognized. With his patron’s help, Redmond augmented his painting income with jobs in the movies.

“You know, something puzzles me about Redmond’s pictures,” Chaplin once said.

“There’s a wonderful joyousness about them all. Look at the gladness in that sky, the riot of color in those flowers. Sometimes I think that the silence in which he lives has developed in him some sense, some great capacity for happiness in which we others are lacking.”

Another Granville Redmond we framed a few years ago is shown below. Early twentieth century California landscape painting had two distinct schools: a brighter impressionist approach associated more closely with Southern California and exemplified by the piece below, and a more muted tonalism more favored in the Northern part of the state (and by the artist himself) and exemplified by the painting shown above. Redmond lived in and enjoyed both parts of the state, and these two examples show how he embraced both styles.

There are a couple of excellent videos on Redmond—a shorter one by the Laguna Art Museum here, and a longer presentation here by the excellent Curator of the Crocker Art Museum, Scott Shields.

This is a woodblock print by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892), considered to be the last great master of ukiyo-e but also one of the most innovative.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi

“Moon Above the Sea at Daimotsu Bay: Benkei” is part of the artist’s series “100 Aspects of the Moon,” created between 1885 and 1892. It’s dated 1886, and is about 14″ x 9″ (oban size).

The extraordinary and dramatic sweeping lines of the wave and the prow of the boat inspired this flaired version of our mortise and tenon Yoshida frame, which Trevor Davis made. The walnut frame with inlaid raised square plugs at the joints is finished with a black wash. A 1/8″ wide fillet painted pale blue is set in at the sight edge.

Ronin Gallery in New York, describes the reference and meaning of the print this way:

Set during the 12th-century Genpei War. When the hero Minamoto no Yoshitsune fled the wrath of his brother, Yoritomo, he and his followers were caught in a violent storm in the Straits of Shimonoseki. As the water threatened their ranks, Musashibo Benkei, a favorite hero of the Genpei Wars and devout follower of Yoshitsune, took to the front of the ship and saved them with his prayers. In this dynamic design, Yoshitoshi contrasts the fury of the storm with the serenity of Benkei. While the waves crest white and close in around the ship, Benkei appears calm and resolute, his stance strong beneath the ghostly shadows silhouetted in the moon above.

Go to the “Japanese Print Tradition” section of the Portfolio to find many more examples of how we frame Japanese prints. We’ll certainly be adding this one!

You’ll find an online catalogue raisonné of this Yoshitoshi’s work at Yoshitoshi.net.

—Tim Holton

Recently, we’ve been framing many a poster by the late David Lance Goines. This one, made in 2020, was the last of three that Goines made for International House at UC Berkeley. (The first, commemorating I-House’s 50th anniversary, is shown at right. Read about that here.) All three posters featured doves, expressing the great hope at the heart of the institution’s founding: that “a more just and peaceful world” might be fostered in a place where students from around the globe could live and study together. Read Goines’s webpage for this poster here.

The frame, made in walnut, is basically our No. 15 profile at 2″ wide—a shape that I like to use for Goines’s work because of how its fillets resonate with the distinctive way the artist treats his lines. In this case, I added to the basic profile carved hexagons echoing those in the print’s background and accenting the centers. A 1/8″ slip inside the frame is finished in the pewter color used in the print.

This one was for a customer, but we’ve been framing a number of Goines posters and linocut prints in preparation for our exhibit, opening in November here at the Gallery, “David Lance Goines: Process.” Stay tuned for details. But I can tell you, it will be the first posthumous show for the artist, a world-renowned graphic designer and printer, whose work has been and remains ubiquitous in Berkeley. I couldn’t imagine my city’s culture without the posters of David Goines.

On Saturday afternoon, I’ll be giving a presentation here at the Gallery called “Completing the Window: A Frame Maker’s Approach to Framing Landscape Paintings.” Starting with last Saturday’s post I’m showing a few examples of that approach.

This is a triptych in oil on linen that Paul Kratter brought to us to frame for a show he was in at Christopher Queen Galleries, up the coast in Duncans Mills. In composing “Blue Fin Cove Morning,” Paul framed this piece of Point Lobos shoreline between Cypress trees, but also chose the triptych format to repeat that framing. The resonance between the framing effect of the painted trees and the picture frame makes this an especially compelling example of the liminal effect of “completing the window” that is so satisfying in framing landscape paintings—and that will be the focus of my talk.

The frame’s a No. 1 profile at 2-1/2″ wide with doweled proud splines, and two dividers. It’s in quarter sawn white oak with Dark Medieval Oak stain and 23 kt gilt slips. The outside frame dimensions are 21″ x 43″.

Paul Kratter’s “Blue Fin Cove Morning,” is available through Christopher Queen Galleries. More…I’ll present “Completing the Window: A Frame Maker’s Approach to Framing Landscape Paintings” this Saturday, August 22, at 2:00 in the afternoon, followed by a tour of the shop. It’s free, but space is limited, so please email us (info@holtonframes.com) to let us know if we can save you a place.

This Saturday I’ll be giving a presentation here at the Gallery called “Completing the Window: A Frame Maker’s Approach to Framing Landscape Paintings.” Starting with last Saturday’s post I’m posting a few examples of that approach.

This is a small undated (1920’s?) oil painting by Swedish-American painter Carl Redin (1892-1944). The 2″ wide frame is fumed quartersawn white oak, and we added a bronze slip.

Carl Redin, Cathedral Rocks, 1920’s. Oil on linen on board, 13-1/4″ x 15 5/8″.

Corner samples, No. 1.2.0 CV

The profile, No. 1.2.0 CV (corner samples are shown at right), is a new design that I came up with to express in the simplest form the powerful effect of the picture frame as a window frame. Capturing much of the effect of the early Dutch and Flemish rain sill frames, the flat face is like a window casing or trim, while the wide bevel suggests the inside planes of a window. I carved the bevel for texture and to enhance the bevel’s contrast with the face of the moulding. Those two facets of the profile’s face are proportioned 2:1.

On Redin’s “Cathedral Rocks”, the shape of the profile not only sustains and enhances the picture’s perspective but also echoes the sloping land forms depicted. The texture of the carved bevel harmonizes with the texture of the surface of the painted canvas and also evokes the coarse texture of the rocks.

Carl Redin

Carl Redin was born and raised near Stockholm. In 1913, driven by poverty, the young Swede and his family immigrated to Chicago. Joining that city’s Swedish community, he worked varnishing and restoring church paintings. A few years later Redin contracted tuberculosis and decided to catch a train for the more favorable climes of New Mexico, finding treatment in Albuquerque.

According to Wikipedia, Redin “painted during a time when New Mexico was marketing itself as an exotic getaway. His paintings adorned hotels, public buildings, and department stores.” By the ‘thirties, the artist enjoyed national recognition.

Redin would stay in the Southwest and California the rest of his life, painting and teaching, his final years spent here in the Bay Area. He passed away in Los Gatos, barely 52 years old.

More examples of this frame—

Here are two more paintings in the same frame, No. 1.2.0 CV. Both hang in the Gallery. The first is by Davis Perkins, the second by Paul Kratter.

Again, I’ll present “Completing the Window: A Frame Maker’s Approach to Framing Landscape Paintings” this Saturday, August 22, at 2:00 in the afternoon. It’ll be followed by a tour of the shop. I hope you’ll come. It’s free, but space is limited, so please email us (info@holtonframes.com) to let us know if we can save you a place.

—Tim Holton

Next Saturday, August 22, at 2:00 I’ll be giving a presentation here at the Gallery called “Completing the Window: A Frame Maker’s Approach to Framing Landscape Paintings.” This coming week I’ll post a few examples of that approach.

The Harry Adamson painting before re-framing

This 28″ x 48″ oil painting,”Evening Majesty—Canada Geese in Migration” is a great example of the work of Harry Curieux Adamson (1916-2012). The painting came in a factory-made black and metal leaf frame. In terms of proportion and visual elements, that setting could’ve been worse, but the quality of the painting deserved better craftsmanship on the part of a framer. So I replaced it, making this 4″ wide carved compound mitered frame in quarter sawn white oak with Dark Medieval Oak stain, and a pale gold liner. My customer had admired this framing of ours for a Thomas Hill painting and wanted something similar for the Adamson. For the corner carving on the frame for the Hill, I’d taken my cue from the shrubs in the foreground, which looked to me like wintering berries of some sort. But given the pines in this painting, we thought pine branches would be more suitable.

“Evening Majesty—Canada Geese in Migration,” N.D. Oil on canvas, 28″ x 48″

Harry Curieux Adamson, 1916-2012

This painting captures a scene in Canada, but Adamson spent most of his life here in the Bay Area. (He was born in Seattle.) Early in his career he worked as an illustrator at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at UC Berkeley, and was a founding member of the Mt. Diablo Audubon Society. In keeping with landscape painting’s tradition of placing attention on the cause of preserving wilderness, Adamson donated many of his paintings to conservation efforts. The catalog for the Oakland Museum’s 2002 exhibition of Adamson’s paintings noted that the 86 year old painter “is perhaps the oldest living wildlife artist today.” The artist lived for another decade. It was a long and prolific life devoted to the beauty of the land and its creatures, and to the art of landscape and wildlife painting. Adamson’s works deserve frames worthy of that devotion and its achievements.

We framed another Adamson a few years ago, this one below. It’s 18″ x 22″ in a 3-1/2″ compound frame in walnut with a copper-bronze slip.

Again, my presentation “Completing the Window: A Frame Maker’s Approach to Framing Landscape Paintings” will take place next Saturday, August 22, at 2:00, and will be followed by a tour of the shop. I hope you’ll come. The event is free, but space is limited, so please contact us at info@holtonframes.com to reserve your place.

—Tim Holton

On Saturday afternoon, August 22, I’ll be giving a talk titled “Completing the Window: A Frame Maker’s Approach to Framing Landscape Paintings.”

Paul Kratter, “Valley Ranch Near Half Moon Bay”

It’s a truism that a frame should complement the picture that’s in it. But what does that mean? How should we think about the frame, and how can we design frames to successfully complement pictures?

As a culture, we seem to have lost our understanding of the relationship between frames and pictures. My fifty years of framing have taught me many lessons regarding that relationship. Especially fascinating has been the more than two decades of running a gallery of landscape paintings, framing every piece that’s displayed, and witnessing again and again the transformative effect of a truly complementary frame.

That experience has also given me a unique perspective on the fate of frames over the past few centuries. For deep cultural reasons reflecting our relationships to pictures, the art of the picture frame has become debased and degraded, with the inevitable consequence that it has frequently failed pictures, thus compelling many artists, galleries, collectors and even museums to ignore and abandon the frame. While frames have, in the words of frame historian Lynn Roberts “suffered exile and destruction,” I’ve witnessed again and again how frames not only enhance landscape paintings but complete them as windows in our homes, windows on the land.

The talk will be here at the Gallery at 2:00, with questions afterward and a tour of the shop thrown in. The event is free, but space is limited, so please email us to reserve your seat.

—Tim Holton

Arthur Frank Mathews (1860-1945) was California’s premiere muralist and a leading teacher in the state. He was also a great advocate for Arts and Crafts ideals—which led him directly to an appreciation for the significance of the architecture of the frame and its worthiness as an artform. We’ve enjoyed the privilege of framing several works by Mathews and his wife, Lucia Kleinhans Mathews (1870-1955). These jobs have been a wonderful opportunity to draw on the decorative vocabulary the couple are known for. This 18-1/4″ x 14-1/4″ pastel of a girl picking flowers on a poppy-covered hillside was a chance to employ the iconic carved, low relief, polychromed poppy patterns the Mathewses developed—a pure expression of their love for California.

The frame is a compound mitered frame in fumed and oiled quartersawn white oak with a gilt slip. Given the gentle rounded form of the hillside and the oak trees, I chose the cushion form for the overall profile, adding a complementary form, a cove, to the sight edge. The cap is a low cushion as well, and I carved outlines of poppies at the corners and painted them.

This piece was framed for California Historical Design, and is available from them. View it here.

Another Arthur Mathews I framed can be seen here. A lovely framed watercolor by Lucia Mathews is here.

Depictions of architecture, cabinetry, furniture and other things made of wood are always possible cues for the wooden structure that is a frame. Such constructions are themselves, after all, essentially frames of one kind or another. A wooden ladder is another kind of frame. So when we received this very sweet little (just 13-1/4″ x 3″) woodblock print, titled “Hen and Rooster” (1915), by the wonderful shin hanga master Gesso Yoshimoto (1881-1936), the idea came to me for a frame design that would play off the ladder. The construction of the ladder is identical to a mortise and tenon frame, and in this case, the tall, narrow proportions of the print lent themselves to the treatment as well.

The frame is walnut finished with black-tinted beeswax, the wood and finish harmonizing perfectly with the tones in Yoshimoto’s print. Trevor made the frame with flush through tenons visible on the sides for a subtle, pleasing detail. The ends of the stiles and the tops and bottoms of the rails (the rungs of the ladder) are cut at angles to echo the chickens’ ladder.

One thing that makes this print so charming is how it elevates a scene we too often ignore or dismiss as mundane. The old pejorative was “worldly.” Here, the worldly and ordinary are recognized for their significance and beauty.

This is the essential power of the frame, as a threshold that connects two realms, demonstrating the efficacy, in tangible, present reality, of the imaginary, the illusory, the remembered image. The real presence of the frame completes the picture’s mission to re-present—that is, make present again—what is not, or is no longer, present.

As proof and testimony to a picture’s efficacy in its present setting, the frame honors and elevates the picture. And for elevating things, whether a rooster or a work of art, a ladder can come in handy!

By the way, this print came from our friends at the superb Ronin Gallery in New York City.