‘You’re an Artist. That’s What You Do.’
Landscapes are notoriously easy to paint but exceedingly difficult to paint well. For Russell Chatham, the challenge was impossible to resist. There was no other way. Chatham is the grandson of San Francisco muralist Gottardo Piazzoni, and before he turned 20, he had found his calling in painting nature.
In a career that has spanned half a century, Chatham became famous for capturing Montana’s rugged vistas and California’s golden hillsides through an approach that seems to combine a muted, idealized reality and the stuff of dreams. His collectors include Hollywood names like Jessica Lange, Jack Nicholson, and Robert Redford. Along the way, he’s been married three times, and he’s made a fortune from his paintings, book publishing, and running a restaurant—only to lose it all. As he approaches 80, Chatham steadfastly believes in following one’s heart.
Alta editor and publisher Will Hearst sat down with Chatham as he reflected on the difficulties he endured as a young painter and how he’s depended on the love and support of the women in his life. (Disclosure: Hearst is a collector of Chatham’s paintings.)
WILL HEARST: As a little boy, did you think, “I like painting” or “This is what I want to do with my life”?
RUSSELL CHATHAM: When I was eight or nine, it was clear painting was a big deal to me, and so I did it on my own, and all through school I stayed at it relentlessly…through my teen years and through my 20s.
HEARST: Your grandfather Gottardo Piazzoni was a painter. Was your father a painter as well?
CHATHAM: No, he wasn’t. My father had an enormous amount of artistic talent, which he never used. Which was always very sad to me. He graduated from Stanford, and he was an intelligent person, and he could draw beautifully. And though he had some drawings that he had done at school, he never followed through on it. My grandfather disapproved, and Dad decided to take a menial job at the family business instead of following with literature or art or something. My grandfather was, as you well know, a great painter.
HEARST: Did you know him?
CHATHAM: Very slightly. I was five when he died. But I did see him frequently.
HEARST: But you saw his pictures in the family home?
Oh, totally. And my mother’s sister painted. She went to art school and she painted, and she taught at the California School of Fine Arts. Her husband, Philip Wood, was also an artist. When we
