Byron Randall (October 23, 1918 – August 11, 1999) was an American West Coast artist, well known for his expressionist paintings and printmaking. A contemporary of artists Pablo O'Higgins, Anton Refregier, Robert P. McChesney, Emmy Lou Packard (his second wife), and Pele de Lappe (his final companion), Randall shared their left wing politics while exploring different techniques and styles, including a vivid use of color and line. Biography Born in Tacoma, Washington, Byron Theodore Randall was raised in Salem, Oregon, where he worked as a waiter, harvest hand, boxer, and cook for the Marion County jail to finance his art career. In 1939 Randall trained under Louis Bunce and Charles Val Clear at the Federal Art Project's Salem Art Center; he subsequently taught there. When he was 20 years old, a solo show at the Whyte Gallery in Washington D.C. brought his work to the attention of Newsweek and launched his professional career. That exhibit was followed by others, over the years, in places that include Baltimore, Salem Oregon, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Seattle, Indianapolis, Toronto, Montreal, Moscow, Edinburgh, Leeds, and Inverness (Scotland). Randall had three wives. His first wife was Helen Nelson, a Canadian sculptor, whom he met at the Salem Art Center while attending her classes, in 1939. Nelson was brought over from New York to be the first instructor in sculpture for the blind at the Center. She sharpened his commitment to social and trade union activism, and her belief in his talent provided vital support for the fledgling artist. In 1940 they married and moved to Mexico for six months, where they had a child, Gale, and where Randall continued to develop as a painter, inspired by the vibrant landscape and people. During the Second World War years, while Randall served in the Merchant Marines, he continued to paint whenever possible. His experiences in the South Pacific influenced his preference for natural forms and bright colors. After the war, Randall traveled to Eastern Europe, as arts correspondent for a Canadian news agency, where he witnessed and painted the post-war devastation of Yugoslavia and Poland. Randall and Helen settled in the North Beach area of San Francisco where they had a second child, Jonathan, in 1948. Five years later they left the United States for Canada, to escape McCarthyite anti-Communism; they had both been in the US Communist Party. In 1956, Helen