Biography
Born in Saginaw, Michigan in 1946, Randall Deihl attended the Detroit Institute of Arts and Crafts. His art studies were interrupted with drafted service in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam war. Deihl subsequently attended California Institute of Arts and Crafts where he completed his fine arts education. Deihl then moved to New York City and procured work in the field of art illustration, working for the New York Times as an OP-ED illustrator, drawing political cartoons and creating many book and album cover illustrations. Deihl first began to exhibit paintings with Martin Summers Gallery on Madison Avenue near 76th Street. Deihl's New York Times OP-ED illustrations were included in a show of political illustration which traveled to the Louvre and Bordeaux Museums in France. After several shows with Martin Summers Gallery, Deihl was represented by Allan Stone Gallery of New York City. Re-locating to western Massachusetts in the late 1970s, he was befriended by artists Gregory Gillespie and Frances Cohen Gillespie. The Gillespies spearheaded a group of realist painter friends -- Randall Deihl, Robin Freedenfeld, Gregory Gillespie, Frances Cohen Gillespie, Jane Lund and Scott Prior -- who became known as the Valley Realist Group. Deihl also began a 35-year relationship with the R. Michelson Galleries which continues to this day. In 1987 Deihl married painter Nan Hill in Northampton MA. He was represented by A. F. Milliken Gallery in the Soho district of New York from 1987 until the closing of the gallery, and subsequently by J. Cacciola Galleries of New York. Deihl and Hill spent 6 years living and painting in Santa Fe, New Mexico before returning to Massachusetts where they currently reside in Williamsburg. Deihl's artworks have been collected by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Art Boston, Art Institute of Chicago, The National Portrait Gallery, DeCordova Museum, Danforth Museum, D'Amour Museum of Fine Arts Springfield, Riverside Art Museum, Hunter Museum, Delaware Art Museum, Albrecht Dürer Museum, National Academy of Design, Muscarelle Museum of Art, College of William and Mary and Smith College Museum of art, Smith College. He has been twice awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. |