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.
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