Granville Redmond

(American, 1871-1935)

Nocturne 20 x 30in overall: 26 x 36in

Footnotes

Provenance
With Kerwin Galleries, Burlingame, California.
Private collection, Mountain View, California.

Exhibited
Oakland, The Oakland Museum, Granville Redmond, December 3, 1988 – January 29, 1989, no. 60, traveling exhibition, Laguna Beach, Laguna Art Museum, March 9 – April 30, 1989, Washington D.C, Gallaudet University, July 1989.

Literature
The Oakland Museum, Granville Redmond, Oakland, p. 78-79, 98, no. 60, illus. full page color.

Before turning to the better known wildflower paintings, Granville Redmond was more of a tonalist painter and focused on compositions that exemplified the hazy, foggy conditions of the California landscape. Following his move from Philadelphia, Redmond studied art at the San Francisco School of Design. His teachers included Arthur Mathews and Amedee Joullin, both of which often painted in a similar tonalist style. While training as a painter, Redmond became acquainted with many other artists including tonalists Gottardo Piazzoni and Giuseppe Cadenasso. Piazzoni even learned sign language and he and Redmond, who was deaf since childhood, became lifelong friends.

Redmond distinguished himself as an art student and won the W.E. Brown medal of excellence. In 1893 he was awarded a grant from the California School of the Deaf which enabled him to study at the Academie Julian in Paris under Jean Paul Laurens and Benjamin Constant. While in Paris, Redmond distinguished himself once again when his large tonalist canvas, Matin d'Hiver, was accepted for the Paris Salon in 1895.

In 1898, he returned from Paris and settled in Los Angeles, where he painted many scenes in and around Laguna Beach, Catalina Island, and San Pedro. While living in Los Angeles, Redmond became friends with Charlie Chaplin, whom he helped in perfecting his pantomime techniques. Chaplin gave Redmond a studio on the movie lot, collected many of his paintings, and sponsored him in silent acting roles including playing the sculptor in City Lights, and a feature part in You'd Be Surprised. He also got to know Los Angeles artists Elmer Wachtel and Norman St. Clair. All three exhibited paintings with Laguna Beach titles at the annual Spring Exhibition held in San Francisco in 1904. By 1905 Redmond was receiving considerable recognition as a leading landscape painter and bold colorist. Although he recognized the public's preference for his brightly colored poppy pictures, he generally preferred to paint darker, more poetic scenes. It has often been suggested that Redmond's paintings have a distinctly quiet solitude to them, a reflection of his inability to hear.

In this painting, Nocturne, the artist exchanges brilliant chromatic bursts, typically associated with his Impressionistic floral landscapes, for a more somber, subdued, ink-like palette. Dividing the canvas on an asymmetrical diagonal, Redmond presents a balanced yet visually dynamic composition. Nocturne reflects the Impressionists' influence by exploring luminescent light, high horizon, and pointillist brushwork. A mood of tranquility is reiterated in the tonal atmosphere. The entire foreground is defined and constructed by iridescent blue ocean swells, striated with horizontal layers of pitch blacks, lagoon blues, and hints of marine greens. The artist conveyed radiating light from the moon with delicate, minute strokes of creamy white to create moonlight reflecting on the water's surface. The ships nestled in the natural harbor mirror the jutting inlet in the lower right of the picture plane, allowing the eye to rest on the glowing lights of the little anchored boats. Redmond utilized a pointillist technique to render details of the nighttime, covering the area in a microscopic array of colors, each particle of paint representing a single star. In this we see Redmond's love of plein-air painting. Inspired by the night, the artist uses his palette to create a romantic relationship between mood and color.