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Tour of Randall's Studio

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Stave Puzzles

                                                  

Another Day and  A Painter's Prayer (Toulouse Lautrec, Edward Manet, and Vincent Van Gogh, Randall's current inspirations)    

 Randall Lake is a man who should have been born 150 years ago. He lives his life with a turn-of-the-century mentality, having an appreciation for manners, letter writing, antiques, and fine art. The most popular subjects of his paintings are teacups, dinghies, florals, and portraits. During his career forty+ year career, he has accumulated an impressive resume of awards, commissions, and collections.  His artistic inclination started early, developed gradually, and finally burgeoned into a career that continues to evolve.

Randall’s appreciation for the finer things in life, including art, began with his first trip abroad at the age of twelve. His mother took him to Europe to enroll him in a Swiss boarding school. On school holidays, she would come to visit and take him traveling throughout Europe. While traveling western Europe, he witnessed a formal and refined lifestyle that was contrary to his casual southern California upbringing. In time, he grew to prefer the European lifestyle. He fell in love with the passion for the arts that dominate the culture                

                                               

Randall's drawings when he was a child in Europe, 1959-60. Both signed Randy Lake. Priced at $1.75 and $1.65. Randall's first landscape of oil on canvas.

At school in Switzerland, he began his formal art training and looking at the world in an artistic way. He always enjoyed drawing as a pastime, but his Swiss art teacher's praise made him aware of his talents and abilities for the first time. When he traveled with his mother he drew on hotel stationary and on a sketchpad. His first commercial success came when his mother purchased his art during their travels. Suddenly Randall had pocket money. His obsession for recreating scenes he saw on paper turned his thinking towards art as an important part of his life.

 One year later after returning to school in southern California, Randall continued to paint and draw in his spare time. Art was still just a hobby, but he enjoyed the freedom and creativity it allowed in his life. After high school graduation, he moved to Colorado to attend the University of Colorado, Boulder, on a water polo scholarship. During his four years as an undergraduate English major, he still took upper division art classes. 

              When he graduated from college, he wanted to concentrate on art so he left for Paris to go back to the culture he loved. In Paris, he needed a place to live and an income that would support him, so he applied for a studio scholarship through the American Centre for Students and Artists on the Boulevard Raspail in Montparnasse. In May 1970, the scholarship was granted, and he moved into a studio in the Cité Internationale des Arts.                                

                                                 

Tiger, Nicholas II  and an etching from the Paris years.

Influenced by Andy Warhol during his time in Paris, Randall spent his efforts on Pop Art. Flat, arbitrary, solid colors with no shadow dominated his style. During his time of study, he participated in group exhibitions such as the Salon De Mai at the Musée D’Art Moderne, the Salon D’Automne at the Grand Palais, and group shows at the Cité Internationale des Arts. While he was subsidized by scholarship grants, he studied with S.W. Hayter in the famous Atelier 17, learning the art of etching, engraving, and multicolor viscosity printing. At the same time, Randall learned batik making from Andrew Paneerselvam, a scholarship student from India who also resided at the Cité and studied printmaking in Paris.        

                                     

Fish Batik, pencil sketch of downtown Salt Lake City, and an abstract.

At this time Randall found a position teaching English as a lecturer at the Sorbonne. There he met a University of Utah English professor who was in Paris on a Fulbright scholarship who told him of the reputation of portrait painter Alvin Gittins, who also taught at the University of Utah. He told Randall that if he wanted to study chiaroscuro realism, Mr. Gittins was the man with whom he should study.

              Randall remained in Paris for two more years. In 1973, he was awarded another studio grant from the Karolyi Foundation in Vence, France for the summer. When his time in Vence came to a close, he headed back to the States where he applied to the University of Utah graduate program to earn a Master’s in Fine Arts, with an emphasis on portraiture. Since his first degree was not in art he had to take two years of drawing classes to work his way into the graduate program.

 While studying with Mr. Gittins, Randall’s enthusiasm shifted from Warhol to Whistler, Sargent, and Manet. Under Gittins, Randall entered the fold of classical painting that would shape his career for the next 25 years. Gittins was a father figure for Randall, and he made sure Randall was “Cracker Jack” in his skills of drawing and painting because Randall was the first student to ever ask Gittins to chair his graduate committee.

                                        

Early still life, full standing portrait that was Randall's final project for getting into the graduate program, and pastel landscape.

 After graduating from the University of Utah with an MFA, Randall began his career as a full-time artist, painting philanthropists and politicians, flowers and teacups, landscapes and seascapes. Even today, he gathers inspiration from the dead painters “who really knew what they were doing.” Randall thinks the highest mark of esteem is to hang in a gallery along side the dead (Randall quips that his Parisian dealer said Randall had two problems; he is American and that he is alive).

             One of Randall’s favorite places to paint is in Spring City, Utah, a rural town of 1,000 people. He purchased a dilapidated, stone, one-room home with the money he made from painting the governor of Wyoming. Given his bent for all things 19^th century, Randall is at home in this town that has remained undeveloped and beautifully historic. While living there Randall paints plein air scenes among other things. He feels that in Sanpete county, “every five feet there is a painting.” 

                                                 

Horseshoe Mountain,  still life with teapot,  and a scene from Newport Beach.

              In 2004, after a personal crisis, Randall took a two-year hiatus from his art. He moved back to his family home in southern California and vowed he wouldn’t paint again until he had a new heart and a new mind. This gave him valuable time to reflect on his art and career. When he returned to Utah and his brushes, he had changed. The experience of being away from painting so long ended one chapter in his career and opened a new one. 

             Moving away from teacups, dinghies, florals, and portraits, Randall is embarking on a new frontier, trying to find out what’s Randall Lake about a Randall Lake piece. He is no longer fulfilled, faithfully painting the realistic way objects or landscapes look. Of this newfound knowledge Randall says, “ We’re not talking Matisse here. He got there at the age of 20 with a box of watercolors; I’m 62, but my salvation has been Van Gogh whose early inspiration was Adolph Monticelli, who laid paint on like cake frosting.”  He paints thicker than ever before in his career and sees it as a challenge that takes guts, precision, and extended sittings, abandoning the two-hour portraiture sittings for six hour and half hours plus of “bashing your brains out à la Vincent.”

 Randall spends his time now with his companion Clyde, an American Staffordshire Bull Terrier.  He continues to explore his talents with vibrant colors, a more personal approach to his work, and a new eye for the world. 

                                

Best in Show in Spring City 2008 Plein Air competition, studio Interior and sea scape in the South Pacific.

 Education:

1977: MFA University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT

1973: Atelier 17, S.W. Hayter, Paris, France

1972: Ecole Superieure des Beaux Arts, Paris, France

1968: B.A. University of Colorado, Boulder, CO

1968: Academie Julian, Paris, France

Appointments:

1978: University of Utah, Instructor, Salt Lake City, UT

1973: Sorbonne, Lecturer, Paris, France

Partial List of Recent Awards:

2009: 3^rd Place, 85th Annual Spring Salon, Springville Art Museum, Springville, UT

2008: Best In Show, Spring City Plein Air Competition, Spring City, UT

2006: Governor of Utah Award for Fine Art, Salt Lake City, UT

2005: Award of Merit, Springville Museum, Springville, UT

2003: Grand Prix du Peintre Maudit, Guthrie Institute, Salt Lake City, UT

2001: Governor of Utah Award for Fine Art, Salt Lake City, UT

2001: Katlan Family Seascape Award, Salmugundi Club, NY

2000: 47 Most Influential People in History of Utah, Salt Lake City Magazine, UT

1995: Juror’s Award, April Salon, Springville, UT

1992: Utah Opera Company Program Covers, Salt Lake City, UT

1991: Joseph Hartley Memorial Award, Salmugundi Club, NY

1991: Juror’s Award, Kimball Arts Center, Park City, UT

1988: Joseph Hartley Memorial Award, Salmugundi Club, NY

Partial List of Collections:

United States Embassy in Beijing, China (On loan for the duration of Ambassidor Huntsman service)

Utah State Collection of Art, Salt Lake City, UT

Elizabeth and Andy Ackerman, S. Pasadena, CA

Strickland-Wahl Family Collection, Cheviot Hills, CA

Nicholas Cage Collection, Newport Beach, CA

The Rose Collection, Avalon, CA

Wyoming State Collection, Cheyenne, WY

Ms. Ann B. Thagard Collection, Newport Beach, CA

Springville Museum, Springville, UT.

Mr. and Mrs. Mike Blower Collection, Newport Beach, CA

Ivy and Richard Trippeer, St. Paul de Vence, France

The Buck Collection, Laguna Beach, CA

Ragan Henry Collection, Philadelphia, PA

Jim Busby Collection, Balboa Island, CA

Jacobs, Visconsi, Jacobs Collection, Cleveland, OH

Mr. and Mrs. Kremer, Katchum, ID

Megan and Stan Pierson, Palo Alto, CA

Drs. Rushbrooke and Hooper, Newport Beach, CA

L.D.S. Church Museum of History and Art, Salt Lake City, UT

Russell, Reynolds, and Associates, New York, NY

Mr. David Jacobs, Cleveland, OH

Pacific Club, Newport Beach, CA

The John Pence Collection, San Francisco, CA

Michael E. Zschoche Collection, Balboa Island, CA

Strange Collection, New York, NY

The Cracken Collection, Dallas, TX

Collection of Art, Salt Lake City, UT

American Library of Paris, Paris, France