Granville Redmond: The Eloquent Palette

Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California
January 26 — May 17, 2020

Granville Redmond (American, 1871–1935), Sand Dunes, n.d. . Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 in. Private collection.

Granville Redmond (American, 1871–1935), Carmel Coast (Carmel Sand Dunes and Cypress), n.d. Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches. Collection of Paula & Terry Trotter.

Widely considered one of California’s top early artists, Granville Redmond (1871–1935) produced a body of work that captures the state's diverse topography, vegetation, and color. His paintings range in style from contemplative, Tonalist works that evoke a quiet calm, to dramatic and colorful Impressionist scenes.

Born in Philadelphia, Redmond contracted scarlet fever as a toddler, which left him permanently deaf. Soon after, his family moved to California. Today, Redmond is best known for his colorful Impressionist oils depicting the California landscape ablaze with poppies and other native flora.
Silent film star Charlie Chaplin, Redmond’s friend and supporter, said of these paintings, “There’s such 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.”