Byron Randall (October 23, 1918 – August 11, 1999) was an expressionist artist and social activist. Recognized as both a painter and a printmaker, he produced landscapes, still lifes, portraiture, satire, and nudes. Labor, war, and Mexico are among his most prominent themes. Critics identify glowing and unusual color, dramatic lines, intense energy, and emotional range as the hallmarks of his style.Capital Journal (Salem, Oregon), Jan 7, 1939; Capital Journal, Jul 27, 1939; Newsweek, Oct 16, 1939; Washington Daily News, Oct 21, 1939; Idaho Daily Statesman, Mar 1, 1941; California Arts & Architecture, Feb, 1943; L.A. Times, Feb 14, 1943; S.F. Chronicle, Apr 18, 1943; L.A. Times, Nov 19, 1944; S.F. Chronicle, Mar 25, 1945; L.A. Times, Apr 15, 1945; S.F. Chronicle, Jun 16, 1946; L.A. Times, Aug 4, 1946; Opera and Concert, Aug, 1950; L.A. Times, Oct 12, 1952; Statesman Journal (Salem, Oregon), May 15, 1960; Ukiah Daily Journal, Feb 17, 1961; Fort Bragg Advocate-News, Jul 6, 1961; Mendocino Beacon, Dec 22, 1967; Sonoma West Times and News, Dec 5, 1974; Coastal Post (Bolinas, California), Jul 3, 1989. As an activist, Randall was known for peace and environmental work, founding and chairing arts organizations, and promoting international cultural understanding.
Early Years: Oregon, Mexico, and the American East Coast
Randall was born in Tacoma, Washington and raised in Salem, Oregon.Hughes, Edan Milton. Artists in California. 1786-1940, L-Z. Third Edition. Sacramento: Crocker Art Museum (2002); S.F. Chronicle, Aug 19, 1999. His family's economic hardship during the Great Depression influenced him to become a socially-critical artist.Point Reyes Light, Nov 18, 1976. He studied under Louis Bunce at Salem's Federal Art Center (a Community Art Program sponsored by the Federal Art Project), and was mentored by the Center's Director, Charles Val Clear.Evening Herald (Klamath Falls, Oregon), Sep 15, 1939. Randall identified both the Oregon landscape and the New Deal's Works Progress Administration as formative to his creative development.Willamette Collegian, Apr 29, 1960.
In 1939, Salem's Art Center hosted the 20-year-old's first one-man show of watercolors.Statesman Journal, Jan 8, 1939. Later that year Randall went to Washington, D.C. where he showed his watercolors to Donald Whyte, founder of the Whyte Gallery, and his professional career began.Grieve, Victoria. The Federal Art Project and the Creation of Middlebrow Culture. Urbana: U. of Illinois Press (2009). Whyte put him on a long-term stipend, bought over 30 watercolors, and quickly resold the majority.Capital Journal, Jun 3, 1939; Capital Journal, Sep 20, 1939. Whyte's Gallery hosted Randall's one-man show, "Present Tense", in October 1939.Washington Daily News, Oct 7, 1939. Newsweek magazine published a feature on Randall and his exhibit.Newsweek, Oct 16, 1939. National media declared him "Art Find of the Season" and carried images of his show's Mexican landscapes, New York cityscapes, and portraits.Art News Magazine, Oct 14, 1939; Newsweek, Oct 16, 1939; Washington Daily News, Oct 21, 1939; Washington Post, Oct 15, 1939. Duncan Phillips, founder of The Phillips Collection, added Randall's watercolor "Nocturne" to his collection.Capital Journal, Mar 30, 1940; The Phillips Collection. A Museum of Modern Art and Its Sources. Catalogue. NY and London: Thames Hudson (1952), p.131. New York's Museum of Modern Art included his work in the "Unknown American Painters" show, while Whyte arranged a one-man show that toured the West Coast.Times Herald (Washington, DC), Oct 8, 1939.Times Herald, Oct 8, 1939; Idaho Daily Statesman, Mar 1, 1941; Seattle Star, Jun 6, 1940; Tacoma Times, Jan 14, 1941. His East Coast success was closely tracked in his home state, which saw in it a national recognition of Oregon's beauty and cultural significance.Capital Journal, Jul 5, 1941.
In 1940, Randall married Helen Nelson, a Canadian sculptor who had joined the Salem Federal Art Center in 1938 and specialized in instructing blind children.Capital Journal, Jul 1, 1940; Statesman Journal, Nov 2, 1938; Statesman Journal, Jun 30, 1940. The couple moved to Mexico City, where Byron became involved with the Taller de Grafica Popular and befriended one of its founders, the muralist and printmaker Pablo O'Higgins.Vogel, Susan. Becoming Pablo O'Higgins. San Francisco/Salt Lake City: Pince-Nez Press (2010). The Randalls returned to the US in 1941 with a large collection of Mexican art, which they exhibited to the Oregon public.Capital Journal, Feb 6, 1941. Randall saw strong government support as a major factor in Mexican cultural excellence, and advocated that the USA follow its example.Capital Journal, Jul 2, 1941. He now taught at the Salem Federal Art Center.Statesman Journal, Jan 26, 1941. There he held a major retrospective of 75 works, which was extended by popular demand.Capital Journal, Jul 7, 1941; Statesman Journal, Jul 20, 1941. Among the pieces that quickly sold was a socially-conscious painting about the Spanish Civil War.Statesman Journal, Jul 8, 1941. As a printmaker, Randall made a linocut series about the effects of World War II on Salem civilian life.Statesman Journal, Jan 11, 1942.
Middle Years: California's Bay Area and Canada
The Randalls moved to California in 1942, from where Byron shipped out to the South Pacific, as a Merchant Marine, with his artist friend Robert P. McChesney.Statesman Journal, Apr 21, 1942; S.F. Chronicle, May 31, 2002. Both artists painted prolifically in conditions that were frequently life-threatening.S.F. Chronicle, May 31, 2002; Point Reyes Light, Nov 18, 1976. Randall's resulting South Pacific paintings were exhibited in California in the 1940s.Citizen-News (Hollywood), Mar 31, 1945; L.A. Times, Apr 15, 1945. In San Francisco, he became part of a North Beach artistic community associated with Henri Lenoir, proprietor of the Iron Pot, 12 Adler Place, and Vesuvio Cafe.S.F. Chronicle, Nov 9, 1980; S.F. Chronicle, May 31, 2002. These establishments operated simultaneously as art galleries and restaurants.S.F. Chronicle, Jun 9, 1946. Randall participated in one-man and group shows at Lenoir's venues.S.F. Chronicle, Jun 16, 1946; S.F. Chronicle, Mar 13, 1949; S.F. Chronicle, Dec 25, 1949. From these, San Francisco Museum of Art (later named San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) selected a Randall work for its permanent collection.S.F. Chronicle, Apr 11, 1946.
Randall was also part of an artistic community that taught and exhibited at the California Labor School. In 1948, to commemorate the centenary of the Communist Manifesto, it published the booklet, The Communist Manifesto in Pictures, with illustrations by Randall, Giacomo Patri, Robert McChesney, Hassel Smith, Louise Gilbert, Lou Jackson, and Bits Hayden.Johnson, Mark Dean. Ed. At Work. The Art of California Labor. San Francisco: California Historical Society Press (2003). One of these, Randall's "Diabolical Machine", was reproduced in the leftwing journal Mainstream.Mainstream, Vol. 14, Number 6, 1961.
Shortly after World War II ended, Randall worked as an art correspondent for a Canadian news agency, which sent him to Poland and Yugoslavia.L.A. Times, Aug 4, 1946; Statesman Journal, Apr 18, 1947. His East European scenes of cities, war ruins, and Jewish survivors were exhibited in Chicago and L.A.Chicago Star, Jun 21, 1947; Statesman Journal, Apr 18, 1947; L.A. Times, Nov 30, 1947. During this decade Randall's work was included in multiple annual San Francisco Art Association shows: three times as watercolorist, once as oil painter, and once as printmaker. His work was exhibited in major group shows at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1949 and 1950.S.F. Chronicle, Jan 30, 1949; S.F. Chronicle, Jan 15, 1950. Randall's art was frequently shown in Los Angeles galleries,L.A. Times, Feb 14, 1943; L.A. Times, Jul 18, 1943; Citizen-News, Nov 11, 1944; L.A. Times, Apr 8, 1945; L.A. Times, Aug 4, 1946; Citizen-News, Sep 27, 1947; Citizen-News, May 27, 1950; L.A. Times, Oct 12, 1952. and was particularly popular at L.A.'s American Contemporary Gallery, where he held six one-man shows.
While living in the Bay Area, Randall was active in local arts organizing. Inspired by the example of the Taller de Grafica, he founded the San Francisco Artists' Guild and served as its president. The Guild established a gallery and exhibited work by many California Labor School artists.S.F. Chronicle, Aug 19, 1946. It hosted the first West Coast show of revolutionary graphic art by the Taller.Makin, Jean. Ed. Codex Mendez. Tempe: Arizona State U. Press (1999). Randall's activism also led him to serve as the co-chair of the San Francisco Committee for Municipal Art which successfully campaigned for city funds to sponsor and finance San Francisco's first open air art show.S.F. Chronicle, May 23, 1946; S.F. Chronicle, August 29, 1946.
Randall was involved in the US Communist movement, and, in 1953, following the advice of an attorney, the Randalls moved to Canada to escape McCarthyism.Point Reyes Light, Jul 14, 1989. Randall painted scenes of urban and rural Canadian life, while there, and taught art at the Montreal Y.M.H.A.Capital Journal, Aug 13, 1956; Poughkeepsie Journal, Sep 2, 1956; Y.M.H.A. Beacon (Montreal), Sep 22, 1955. He travelled again to Mexico in 1954, where he was made an Associate Member of the Taller de Grafica Popular. There he produced a linocut series of Mexican working people. From it, "Maestros", "Hanging Clothes" and "Carbonero" were published in American and Russian journals. In Montreal, Randall's wife Helen was fatally struck by a car in 1956.Gazette (Montreal, Quebec), Nov 17, 1956.
Late Years: California's Mendocino and Tomales
Following his wife's death, Randall returned to California, where he developed the mixed media "Water Street, San Francisco" still life series. In 1959 he married the muralist, painter, and printmaker Emmy Lou Packard.S.F. Examiner, Jun 2, 1959. They belonged to a creative vanguard of artists that moved from the Bay Area to the Northern California coastal town of Mendocino.Nixon, Stuart. Redwood Empire. New York: E. P. Dutton (1966). They established the Randall Packard Art Gallery.Mendocino Beacon, Sep 2, 1960. Together they exhibited in galleries and public institutions across the West Coast.Daily Independent Journal (San Rafael, California), Dec 11, 1961; L.A. Times, Oct 1, 1961; Medford Mail Tribune (Medford, Oregon), Apr 18, 1961; Mendocino Beacon, Sep 13, 1963; Peninsula Times Tribune (Palo Alto, California), Jun 19, 1967. As muralists, they created a concrete bas relief frieze at the U.C. Berkeley Chavez Student Center.Ukiah Daily Journal, Jul 25, 1961. In 1964, Russia's Pushkin Museum acquired 48 of their block prints for its permanent collection, and hosted a televised exhibition devoted to their work. Packard and Randall reciprocated by hosting a Soviet Art exhibit in 1967, the first art exchange exhibit of Soviet art on the West Coast.Advocate-News, March 30, 1967.
The couple were members of the Mendocino Citizen's Committee, whose purpose was to foster political debate.Press Democrat (Santa Rosa), Feb 27, 1966. Involved in the anti-war movement, they were US delegates to the 1965 Eighth World Congress for Peace, National Independence, and General Disarmament, in Helsinki. Their gallery became the local headquarters for the Peace and Freedom Party.Mendocino Beacon, Jan 26, 1968. They were also environmental activists who successfully campaigned to turn the Mendocino Headlands into a state park.S.F. Chronicle, Jan 16, 1969; Ukiah Daily Journal, Aug 17, 2006. Their activism subjected them to death threats and property damage.Press Democrat, Feb 27, 1966; S.F. Chronicle, May 2, 1982.