L The actor portraying the sculptor, Granville Redmond, appeared in seven films of Chaplin, recognizable by his wild mane. Redmond was deaf and his performances were the earliest examples of deaf representation in Hollywood. Some believe that Redmond even taught Chaplin, famous as pantomime, how to use sign language.
But Redmond was above all an artist, the one who inspired Chaplin with paintings of the natural beauty of the California: Calm, brown scenes; lonely rocky monuments protruding from an island peninsula; grasslands dotted with atrees lit by a hot sun; Blue nocturnal swamps under the dramatic glow of the moon. His paintings are considered today among the best examples of Californian Impressionism.
"California Poppy Field " - Redmond was admired for its landscapes depicting golden poppies, the official state flower. Credit ... California School for t il dead, Fremont, gift of Edith Redmond
Los Angeles Times art critic Arthur Millier wrote in 1931 that Redmond was " unrivaled in the realistic depiction of the California landscape. "Yet his style was never uniform: some paintings left parts of the canvas exposed and large deposits of pigment, while others took on a smoother appearance.
It was above all else known for his paintings of golden poppies, the official state flower. His poppies accentuated his interpretations of the rolling prairies of the San Gabriel Valley, often accompanied by purple lupines. Sometimes they complemented a coastal scene with bursts of yellow highlights .
"He painted them better than anyone; I don't think it can be discussed "said Scott A. Shields, who hosted an exhibition of Redmond 's work last year at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento." You can feel the seasons. You can smell when it 's spring, you can smell when it ' s winter and you can smell when it starts to become summer. "
His poppy paintings have become a popular souvenir with tourists, much to Redmond's dismay; he preferred to paint scenes of loneliness.
"Alas, people won't buy them " he told the Los Angeles Times. "They all seem to want poppies.
Chaplin supported Redmond's career as a painter, gifting him a room to paint in the attic of a building unused from his workshop. During breaks, Chaplin would visit Redmond there and watch him quietly at work.
" Redmond paints loneliness, and yet, by a strange paradox, loneliness is never loneliness, "Chaplin said Alice T. Terry in a 1920 article for The Jewish Deaf, a magazine.
Image Redmond in his studio in 1917. Chaplin would sometimes visit him and watch him quietly at work. Credit ... Collection of Paula and Terry Trotter .
He had an appreciation for the paintings of Redmond that he removed the celebrity photographs of the cinema from its walls so as not to harm to Redmond 's work which he placed on his mantelpiece.
"You know, something is wrong with me.be puzzled about the images of Redmond, ”said Chaplin in 1925 in The Silent Worker, a newspaper for the deaf community. "There is a wonderful joy about them.
" Look at the joy in this sky, the riot of colors in these flowers ", he continued. "Sometimes I think the silence he lives in has developed in him in a sense, a great capacity for happiness that we all lack.
Grenville Richard Seymour Redmond was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on March 9, 1871, the eldest of five children to Charles and Elizabeth (Buck) Redmond. (He changed the spelling of his name to Granville in 1898 to differentiate himself from an uncle.) His father was a Civil War veteran in the Union Army and a laborer who worked in several trades.
Redmond lost his ability to hear when he was 2 years old, having contracted scarlatin. The following year, his family moved to San Jose, California to live near a family member who owned a ranch.
Image " Moonlight over the swamp " Credit .. . Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas B. Stiles II In 1879 , he enrolled at the California Institution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb, and the Blind (now the California School for the Deaf) in Berkeley. This is where Redmond found an affinity for drawing under the guidance of another deaf artist, Estrella 's Theophilus Hope , who introduced him to an art class on Saturday at the California School of Design. He continued to enroll in the school. In 1893, he was selected by the faculty to create a drawing for 1893 World 's Columbian Exposition in Chicago .
Redmond communicated through sign language and writing, but due to his concentration on the art he never mastered the Written English, a gap in his education that he came to regret. "When I started school, I always drew, drew," he writes.
After graduating, he studied in Paris at the Academie Julian . In 1895, his painting“ Matin d'Hiver ” , depicting a barge on the banks of the Seine, was admitted to the Paris Salon, a great honor for an artist of the time. He painted in France for a few more years, hoping to enter another painting at the Salon and win a medal , but he had financial difficulties and returned to California, depressed, in 1898.
He married Carrie Ann Jean, who was from Indiana and also deaf in 1899, and they had three children.
Image Redmond's poppy paintings have become popular among tourists - much to his chagrin. He prefers to paint scenes of loneliness. people won't buy them, ”he says. “ They all seem like youuloir des coquelicots. Credit ... Collection of Thomas Gianetto Redmond's first jobs were Tonalist in nature, a nod to his training in San Francisco as well as to 19th century artists School of Barbizon , whose landscape paintings he had learned in France. Many of his paintings are scenes from Terminal Island, Catalina Island and Laguna Beach in Southern California. He returned to Northern California in 1908, living andpainting in Monterey, San Mateo and Marin counties.
"Many newspapers wrote that he could see more than the average person because his sense of vision was enhanced," said Shields, the curator of the Crocker Museum, in a telephone interview. "Redmond believed it himself.
Redmond's work was well received, but a lack of funds - in part due to an economic downturn at the start of World War I - caused him to return to Los Angeles and try his hand at acting.
In the silent movie era, Redmond's handicap, coupled with his artistic inclination, worked to his advantage. Chaplin saw him as a natural for small parts in his films because Redmond expressed himself through gestures, Shields said. The two communicated on set by signing each other.
Sometimes Redmond's deafness made its way into intrigue. In Arthur Rosson's" You'd Be Surprised "(1926), Redmond played a coroner posing as a deaf valet. Only spectators knowing sign language could follow the conversation.
The films also provided him with a new market for his art; buyers included the Hollywood elite, such as Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford.
Redmond died of heart disease on May 24, 1935. He was 64 years old. ( Chaplin passed away at age 88 in 1977.)
Alice Terry, writer for The Jewish magazine Deaf, saw artistic commonalities between the two friends.
"Froms more than two years now, these two have been working side by side, "she wrote in 1920," Chaplin, silently and dramatically, by his ingenious trivialities, creating mirth and sunshine for millions of weary people; and Redmond, silently and yet effectively, illuminating the lives of all, with his radiant and attractive images on canvas. "
