March 9: Granville Redmond (1871-1935)

[Image description: black-and-white photo of two men, facing each other; on the left, artist Granville Redmond; on the right, actor Charlie Chaplin in his trademark costume; Chaplin appears to be signing to Redmond. Redmond has a pen in one hand and a cigar in the other. Found here.]





Well, a Temple U. blog should certainly take note of a prominent deaf Philadelphian's birthday, no?

Granville Redmond was born on this date in 1871, in Philadelphia. He became deaf after surviving scarlet fever when he was a very small child. Perhaps in recognition of young Granville's educational needs, his parents moved the family to San Jose, California, so the boy could attend the Berkeley School for the Deaf.

Granville Redmond was a student at the Berkeley school for eleven years (1879-1890). He was found to be a gifted artist and encouraged to develop his talents at the school. After graduating, he attended the California School of Design in San Francisco, where he was an award-winning student. From 1893 to 1898, Redmond worked and studied in Paris. When he returned to the US, he went to paint beach scenes near Los Angeles, and married a deaf woman, Carrie Ann Jean. They had three children together. Redmond gained a solid reputation as California's first resident Impressionist painter.

So what's with the photo above? Well, Redmond and Charlie Chaplin became friends in Los Angeles (a much smaller town then, of course). Chaplin, being a silent film star, was always interested in visual communication, and wanted Redmond to help him learn how ASL worked--which seems to be what's happening in the photo above. Chaplin also supported Redmond's artistic career--he set up a studio for Redmond on the film set, he bought Redmond's paintings, and he invited Redmond to appear in a few silent films, including the 1931 Chaplin classic City Lights (Redmond plays a sculptor). The Redmond/Chaplin friendship is also mentioned in Martin F. Norden's The Cinema of Isolation: A History of Physical Disability in the Movies (Rutgers UP 1994): 70-71.

Interested readers can go see works by Redmond--mostly landscapes and seascapes--at the Irvine Museum, the Laguna Art Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among other collections.

November 9: Walter Geikie (1795-1837)

[visual description: a memorial plaque that reads:

Walter Geikie RSA 1795-1837
Deaf Artist of Renown Co-Founder of the World's First Deaf Church and Society
Beloved of all in this Parish and City
Installed by his fellow deaf Scots of the Donaldsonian Association 6th April 1996
His true memorial may be seen in our city art galleries and in the quality of life and dignity accorded to deaf citizens of Edinburgh today
'Come join wi' me, folk of Auld Reekie
To weave a wreath for glorious Geikie'

engraved in gold lettering on dark stone]

Scottish painter Walter Geikie was born 9 November 1795, in Edinburgh. When he was two years old, he survived a serious illness with total deafness; because of his early age at the time, he didn't develop spoken language, either. Geikie's father, a wigmaker, believed the boy could learn, and taught Walter to read and do basic math. At 15, Walter was admitted to the new Institute for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb in Edinburgh, but soon his skills prompted a transfer to the Trustees' Academy of Industrial Design.

Geikie studied drawing at the Academy, and became a successful artist, specializing in scenes of urban life. He exhibited paintings in Edinburgh to critical acclaim. He also published two volumes of etchings. Walter Geikie was voted into the Scottish Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture as a academician in 1834.

Geikie is also remembered, as the memorial plaque above indicates, for co-founding the first deaf church in Scotland (or maybe anywhere), where scriptures were discussed and sermons delivered in sign language, by and for deaf believers. (An offshoot of the church, the Edinburgh and East of Scotland Society for the Deaf, still exists.)

Geikie died suddenly from typhoid fever at the age of 41. A posthumous collection of his works, titled "Etchings Illustrative of Scottish Character and Scenery," was popular and helped keep his name before Scottish audiences through the mid-nineteenth century.

For further reading:

Elizabeth Bredberg, "Walter Geikie: The Life Schooling and Work of a Deaf Artist at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century," Disability & Society 10(1)(1995): 21-39.

Archibald Geikie, "Brief Sketch of the Life of Walter Geikie, Esq., R. A. S., Edinburgh, Scotland," American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb 7(4)(July 1855): 229-237.

Harry G. Lang and Bonnie Meath-Lang, Deaf Persons in the Arts and Sciences: A Biographical Dictionary (Greenwood Publishing 1995): 141-143.

Around the Deaf World in Two Days

Our East Coast readers (or those willing to travel) will want to make plans to attend an exciting upcoming conference at Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA, on Deaf Studies from a global perspective.

The conference kicks off Friday evening, February 29 [its leap year]. At the welcoming reception linguistics scholar Carol Padden will be speaking on “Sign Language Geography: Creation and Spread of Sign Languages Around the World.” The following morning, Gaurav Mathur will be looking at the underlying structure of signs, like grammer in spoken languages, drawing upon examples from around the world, including Australian, German and Japanese Sign Languages. An exceptionally broad range of topics and regions will be represented over the course of that Saturday, March 1, 2008. Teachers can receive Act 48 hours (CEU's) for attending and participating in the conference. ASL teachers may acquire Clock Hours for ASLTA.

This conference is organized by the Linguistics Department at Swarthmore College and sponsored by the William J. Cooper Foundation. The entire program and directions to the campus can be found on the conference website.