Gordon Grant
American
He maintained a studio in New York City at 137 East 66th Street throughout most of his career, but was active in California as a member and exhibitor of the California Printmakers and California Society of Etchers.
Grant was the author-illustrator of Ships Under Sail (1941) and The Secret Voyage (1943). He died in New York City on May 7, 1962.
Memberships:
National Academy of Design; American Federation of Art; Salmagundi Club; National Arts Club, American Watercolor Society; New York Society of Painters; New York Watercolor Club; Washington Watercolor Club; Baltimore Watercolor Club; Chicago Society of Etchers; Philadelphia Watercolor Club; California Printmakers; California Society of Etchers.
Exhibitions:
Salmagundi Club (NYC), 1901, 1929, 1931 (prizes); National Academy of Design, 1926; Art Institute of Chicago, 1927, 1933; California Society of Etchers, 1928; Pasadena Art Institute 1930; NMAA, 1930 (solo); Painters & Sculptors of LA, 1931, 1937; Chicago Society of Etchers, 1932 (1st prize), 1935; Library of Congress, 1944-46.
Collections
CGA; Shasta State Historical Museum; MM; Whitney Museum; Joslyn Art Museum (Omaha); NY Public Library; Annapolis Naval Academy; New Britain Museum of Art; Library of Congress; White House (Washington DC); Kennebunkport (ME) Post Office (mural).
Gordon Hope Grant
(1875-1962)
Gordon Grant was born in 1875 in San Francisco. When he was thirteen, his parents sent him to Scotland, their home land, to school. The sea voyage around Cape Horn made a lasting impression on the boy, and ships and sailors have been the chief interest in his life and art.
After graduation he started an apprenticeship in one of the large shipyards on the Clyde River, but was offered a position as the art editor of a London magazine which he accepted.
His work as an illustrator in San Francisco for the Examiner allowed time for development of his printmaking. Later he moved to New York where he was an illustrator for one or more newspapers.
In 1925 he was briefly in California to exhibit, and to spend three months sketching at sea between San Francisco and Alaska.
Art News Magazine reported his return to New York in June of 1925. His specialty was clipper ships in port and at sea.
Prints by the artist are found in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha; Library of Congress; Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe and the U.S. Naval Academy Museum, Annapolis.
Born in San Francisco, Gordon Grant is known for his etchings and paintings of marine subjects. He also painted portraits, streets, harbors, beaches and marines, and was an illustrator, whose work included pulp fiction* for Popular Detective magazine in the 1930s. Skilled with watercolor, Grant was honored many times by the American Watercolor Society*. Memberships included the Society of Illustrators*, Salmagundi Club*, Allied Artists of America*, New York Society of Painters, and American Federation of Artists*.
At age 13, he was sent to Scotland for schooling, and the four-month sail around Cape Horn remained a permanent influence on his career. He studied art in Heatherly and at the Lambeth School of Art* in London, and then in 1895, he became a staff artist for the San Francisco Examiner. The next year, he took the same type of job for the New York World and covered the Boer War for Harper's Weekly. He also worked for Puck magazine for eight years and did illustration for children's and adult books.
For Harper's Weekly, he served as a combat artist for both the Boer War and the Mexican Revolution.
His reputation as a marine painter became much stronger after 1906 when prints of his painting of the U.S. Constitution went on the market with popular reception, and the monies were used to preserve the old ship. Grant and others were successful lobbying Congress to designate the vessel a national monument, and Grant's painting of the U.S. Constitution is in the White House collection, where it has hung in the Oval Office.
Person TypeIndividual
American, 1890 - 1979
