Byron Randall
| Byron Randall | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
October 23, 1918 Tacoma, Washington |
| Died | August 11, 1999 (aged 80) San Francisco, California |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Painting and Printmaking |
| Movement | Social Realism, Expressionism |
| Spouse(s) | Helen Nelson (1940–1956), Emmy Lou Packard (1959–1972), Eve Wieland (1982–1986) |
Byron Randall (October 23, 1918 – August 11, 1999) was an American West Coast artist, well known for his expressionist paintings and printmaking. A contemporary of artists Pablo O'Higgins, Anton Refregier, Robert ‘Mac’ McChesney, Emmy Lou Packard (his second wife), and Pele deLappe (his final companion), Randall shared their left wing politics while exploring different techniques and styles, including a vivid use of color and line. His work is held in permanent collections of the Phillips Collection, the California Palace of the Legion of Honour, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, the Schneider Museum of Art, the Bolinas Art Museum, the Janet Turner Print Collection and Gallery, and the Oakland Museum of California.
Born in Tacoma, Washington, Byron Theodore Randall was raised in Salem, Oregon, where he worked as a waiter, harvest hand, boxer, and cook for the Marion County jail to finance his art career. Randall trained and subsequently taught at the Salem Art Center, product of the New Deal’s Federal Art Project. When he was 20 years old, a solo show at the Whyte Gallery in Washington D.C. brought his work to the attention of Newsweek and launched his professional career. That show was followed by others, over the years, in Oregon, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle, Toronto, Montreal, Edinburgh, Leeds, and Inverness, Scotland.
Randall had three wives. His first wife was Helen Nelson, a Canadian sculptor, whom he met at the Salem Art Center while attending her classes in sculpture. She sharpened his commitment to social and trade union activism, and her belief in his talent provided vital support for the fledgling artist. In 1940 they married and moved to Mexico for six months, where they had a child, Gale, and where Randall continued to develop as a painter, inspired by the vibrant landscape and people. During the Second World War years, while Randall served in the Merchant Marines, he continued to paint whenever possible. His experiences in the South Pacific influenced his preference for natural forms and bright colors.
After the war, Randall traveled to Eastern Europe, as arts correspondent for a Canadian news agency, where he witnessed and painted the post-war devastation of Yugoslavia and Poland. Randall and Helen settled in the North Beach area of San Francisco where they had a second child, Jonathan, in 1948. Five years later they left the United States for Canada, to escape McCarthyite anti-Communism; they had both been in the US Communist Party. In 1956 Helen was killed by a car. Randall and his children returned to San Francisco where he married the print-maker and muralist Emmy Lou Packard. Between 1959 and 1968 Randall and Packard ran a Guest House and Art Gallery in Mendocino, California. They were political and environmental activists, involved in the campaign to protect the area from commercial despoliation and in the creation of the Peace and Freedom Party.
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