Randall Deihl

Randall Deihl is one of the valley’s most acclaimed artists and perhaps the most prominent figure in what has become nationally known as the Valley Realist School. He was born in 1946 in Saginaw, Michigan and studied at the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts and at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California.

Randy moved to New York City in 1969 where he made his living as a commercial artist doing detailed pencil drawings. His political art for the New York Times op-ed page as well as his various magazines and book jackets ultimately led to his first one-man exhibition in 1971.  In 1977 he relocated to the Pioneer Valley and befriended a number of emerging realist painters, Gregory Gillespie, Scott Prior, Jane Lund, and Robin Freedenfeld, who all achieved national prominence as the Valley Realists.  

His paintings of American cultural icons hang in over a dozen museums throughout the country including the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, some 18 collections in all. His best known painting, Sweets—an interior of Northampton’s Academy of Music – hangs in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.  R. Michelson Galleries has represented Deihl’s work for over 30. He currently lives in Western Massachusetts with his wife, painter Nan Hill, whose work also is exhibited at R. Michelson Galleries.

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View photos from the artist’s 2005 opening reception of Randall Deihl: An American Realist