Biography of Granville Redmond

(1871 - 1935)

Biography

Granville Redmond (March 9, 1871 – May 24, 1935) was an American landscape painter and exponent of Tonalism and California Impressionism.

Early years

Granville Richard Seymour Redmond was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on March 9, 1871 to a hearing family. He contracted Scarlet Fever at around 2½ to the age of 3; when he recovered, he was found to be deaf. This may have prompted his family's decision to move from the East Coast to San Jose, California: the possibility for his education at the Berkeley School for the Deaf.

Study

Granville attended the California School for the Deaf in Berkeley from 1879 to 1890 where his artistic talents were recognized and encouraged. There his teacher Theophilus d'Estrella taught him painting, drawing and pantomime.[1]

When he graduated from CSD, Redmond enrolled at another CSD: the California School of Design in San Francisco, where he worked for three years with teachers such as Arthur Frank Mathews and Amedee Joullion. He famously won the W. E. Brown Medal of Excellence. He associated with many other artists, including Gottardo Piazzoni and Giuseppe Cadenasso. Piazzoni learned American Sign Language and he and Redmond were lifelong friends. They lived together in Parkfield, California, and Tiburon.

1893 saw Redmond win a scholarship from California School of the Deaf and from the School of Design, which made it possible for him to study in Paris at the Académie Julian under teachers Jean-Paul Laurens and Benjamin Constant. At the Académie Julian, he roomed with sculptor Douglas Tilden, famous deaf sculptor and another graduate of the California School for the Deaf. In 1895 in Paris his painting Matin d'Hiver, was accepted for the Paris Salon.

Back in California

In 1898, he returned to California and settled in Los Angeles, where he painted many beautiful beach scenes. He was married in 1899 to Carrie Ann Jean, a former student of the Illinois School for the Deaf. Together they had three children. It is not known if they were deaf or could hear.

Working with Chaplin

While living in Los Angeles, he became friends with Charles Chaplin, who admired the natural expressiveness of a Deaf person using American Sign Language. Chaplin asked Redmond to help him develop the techniques Chaplin later used in his silent films. Chaplin, impressed with Redmond's skill gave Redmond a studio on the movie lot, collected his paintings, and sponsored him in silent acting roles - the sculptor in City Lights for example.

During this time Redmond did not neglect his painting. Through Chaplin he met Los Angeles neighbor artists Elmer Wachtel and Norman St. Clair. They showed works at the Spring Exhibition held in San Francisco in 1904. By 1905 Redmond was receiving considerable recognition as a leading landscape painter and bold colorist. His artwork was sometimes compared to Matisse; he loved painting flowers and dark, moody scenes.

He died on May 24, 1935 in Los Angeles.