09.03.21 Carl Redin

Carl Redin 1892-1944

By Rebekah Powers | September 2021

Carl Redin was born in Sweden and as a youngster, he was fascinated with the American west. His talent was recognized at 14 he began his study of art in Stockholm. Drafted into the Swedish Navy, he left Navy life and immigrated to the US and settled in Chicago. Later a diagnosis of tuberculosis precipitated his move to fulfill a childhood dream in New Mexico in 1916. He arrives by train to seek treatment at Albuquerque’s Methodist Deaconess Sanitorium. He convalesced for 3 years and during that time, he found comfort and inspiration in the enchanting vistas and open spaces, beginning a tireless exploration that would last 20 years.

Redin helped to form Albuquerque’s first community of artists along with Ben Turner, Nils Hogner and Carl Von Hassler. Redin’s artwork was influenced by the Modernist movement that had made its way to New Mexico’s art communities, including Santa Fe and Taos. He lived in Albuquerque and traveled by bus to paint the Superstition Mountain in Phoenix, Fish Creek Canyon, the Apache Trail, the Tonto ruins and Roosevelt Dam, just to name a few of his adventures in oil painting. But some of his most successful images have also been the lone cottonwood tree against a morning sky, or an illumination of a simple village scene.

Redin never lost his enthusiasm for the vibrant landscapes and twisting forms of the Southwest. He painted the vivid light play, the inherent drama and the most brilliant hues of the Southwest. He became known not only for sophisticated brushwork and strong composition but also an exuberant emotional quality that stood him apart from the other painters of his time. It was said of him “he seems to paint with unerring instinct the moods of the mountains, trees and seasons, adobe houses and people.”

The history of painting in the American Southwest has many colorful chapters. This one includes the unlikely trajectory of a little boy in Sweden enamored with the Southwest, to a Southwest that has become enamored with the inspired paintings of Carl Redin.

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