The year is 1918. A
hand-cranked projector rolls, flickering black and white, as the
bawdy owner of the Green Lantern grabs one of his girls and tosses
her into a crowd of revelers. “If you smile and wink, they’ll
buy a drink,” reads the title card. The actor plays the part
with gesticulating aplomb. And, indeed, there’s a reason why this
particular man is so well suited to the silent medium: He is
completely unable to speak.
The film is Charlie
Chaplain’s A Dog’s Life, and the loathsome dance hall
owner is none other than California’s Impressionist laureate,
Granville Redmond. While short lived, the artist’s foray into
silent film is notable, as it demonstrates the multiplicity that
Redmond exhibited in his artistic career – moving freely between
French Barbizon inspired Tonalism and the bright, high-key color of
California Impressionism. The latter style would lead to Redmond’s
status as one of the most coveted (and collected) of Early California
painters. Today, the paintings of Granville Redmond are found in
private collections, universities, and museums up and down the
California coast and across the globe. Though he would reach the top
echelons of the American art world, the path to Redmond’s uncommon
success was marked by uncommon hardship.
On March 9th,
1871, Charles and Elizabeth Redmond gave birth to healthy baby boy,
whom they named Grenville Richard Seymour Redmond. Sadly – though
perhaps fortuitously, from an art historical perspective – young
Grenville contracted scarlet fever at the age of two, rendering him
completely and irreparably deaf. As a result, Redmond lost the
capacity for speech, a condition which would endure for his entire
life. In 1874, the family moved to the Bay Area, and the boy was
enrolled in the California School for the Deaf in Berkeley, one of
the nation’s most renowned institutions for the hearing impaired.
Redmond excelled in his classes, both academically and socially, but
it was in the arts that he truly shone.
Under the instruction of
artist Theophilus D'Estrella, he developed a
keen eye for light and color, and a particular love of the outdoors
and the en plein air
method, which was coming into fashion among the burgeoning California
art scene. It’s difficult to say to what degree Redmond’s hearing
impairment influenced his art. But whatever the cause, he found
himself immediately attracted to the subtle gradations and quiet
isolation of the Tonalist style. A significant and meaningful part of
his oeuvre that would follow him all of his life.
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| Granville Redmond - Grazing - SOLD |
At
the encouragement of his instructors from the California School,
Redmond enrolled at the San Francisco School of Design at the age of
16. It was here that he would meet perhaps the most significant
instructor of his early artistic career – Director of the School of
Design, Arthur Mathews, recognized by many art historians as the
single most important figure in Early California painting. Mathews
was responsible for the first artistic movement that can accurately
be described as Californian:
the eventually-termed California Decorative Style. Still, had it not
been for this invention, his contribution to the arts would have been
indisputable simply for his tutelage of many young Northern
Californian artists.
Even before graduating from the Academy of Design, Redmond began to receive critical acclaim. He won the W. E. Brown Medal of Excellence and a scholarship to continue his studies in Paris, the young artist’s lifelong dream. In 1893, he crossed the Pacific and enrolled at the Académie Julian, one of France’s most prestigious art schools. Here, under the professorship of such luminaries as Benjamin Constant and Jean Paul Laurenz, Redmond honed his craft. By now, he was focusing almost exclusively on exterior landscape compositions in the Tonalist style, and in 1895 his canvas, Matin d’Hiver, was accepted into the exclusive Paris Art Salon.
In
1898, Redmond returned to California and settled in Los Angeles.
After years of study, he was finally ready to embark on his journey
as a professional artist. Perhaps in response to his new state in
life, Grenville Richard Seymour Redmond decided that a nom
de pinceau was in order – and thus
he dropped the foremost e
in favor of an a,
did away with his middle names altogether, and became simply
Granville Redmond.
Granville
Redmond’s early professional career in Southern California is
characterized by subtle Tonalist compositions, often landscapes and
seascapes of Laguna Beach, Catalina Island, and San Pedro.
These early works exhibit quiet, almost solemn undertones – hinting at an artist who was at the same time both extremely sensitive and somehow conflicted. Additionally, Redmond completed a number of nocturnes during this time, tenebrous pastorals reminiscent of the work being produced in Northern California at the time.
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| Granville Redmond - Moonlit Pond - SOLD |
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| Granville Redmond - Night Sailing - SOLD |
It
is in Los Angeles that Redmond would eventually meet Charlie
Chaplain. The two would quickly become fast friends, trading
techniques in pantomime and other non-verbal cues – one educated
through a lifetime of silent observation, the other through a career
on the silver screen. They got along so handsomely that not only did
Chaplain invite Redmond to star in three of his feature films, but
the actor also independently financed a studio for the artist on his
film lot.
In
1899, Granville married Carrie Ann Jean, herself a graduate from the
Illinois School for the Deaf. Over the next several years, they would
have three children together. By this time, Redmond was already
garnering favorable reviews as a talented and thoughtful colorist in
the LA art scene.
But
the artist was soon to explore a whole new method of composition, and
in 1908 he packed up his family and moved north to Monterey, where
his typically moody Tonalist landscapes began to change, becoming
instead more expansive, idyllic, and colorful.
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| Granville Redmond - California Landscape - SOLD |
Two years later, the
Redmond family moved again, this time to San Mateo, where Granville
firmly rooted himself in the San Francisco art establishment. He took
the critical world by storm with his sweeping visions of California
landscapes, hillsides on fire with golden poppies and violet lupine.
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| Granville Redmond - California Poppies - SOLD |
The
demand for his work exploded. For the next 25 years, Redmond
traveled up and down the California coast – one of the few Early
Californian artists to do so – capturing its quintessential light
and color. His work matured, becoming more Impressionistic, even
Pointillist, as he grew to become one of the West Coast’s foremost
California Impressionists.
He drew comparisons to France’s greatest
masters – Monet, Matisse, Pisarro. And though collectors, artists,
and patrons had an insatiable appetite for his vivid wildflower
canvases, the artist never gave up his passion for his quiet,
Tonalist compositions. For the rest of his life, Redmond would
continue to paint his beloved, brooding nocturnes; subtle, grey
pastorals; silent, solitary coastals – even as the demand for his
Impressionistic landscapes continued to skyrocket.
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| Granville Redmond - Solitude - SOLD |
Today,
Granville Redmond is remembered as a master of both California
Impressionism and California Tonalism. His work continues to be
bought and sold around the world, publicly and privately, and every
retrospective of seminal Californian art bears his name. His work is
held in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, San
Francisco’s de Young Museum, the Laguna Art Museum, Crocker Museum,
Stanford University Museum, Oakland Museum, the Irvine Museum, the California School of
the Deaf, Mills College – to name but a few.
Granville Redmond
died on May 24, 1935 in Los Angeles. He was 63 years old.
For
more information on Granville Redmond, including available canvases,
please visit us online at kargesfineart.com, or email us at wganz@kargesfineart.com.
