BIOGRAPHY -  JIM GRAND  


Jim Grand was born August 30, 1931, in a frame house on old Route Eight in Peninsula, Ohio, near his maternal grandfather’s plant nursery. Fascinated in early childhood by the seemingly huge flowerbeds surrounding his grandfather’s greenhouse, he developed a life-long need for bright color.

As a small child, he remembers vividly his father painting large landscape murals on the dining room walls of their home in North Akron. Later, as a teenager, he worked after school at a sign painting company, General Outdoors Advertising, where he was interested in the process of journeymen painters creating huge signboards on large panels with colorful paints and large brushes.

After high school and some college classes at Akron University, he joined the US Army and served during the Korean War as a 2nd Lieutenant, Infantry, with the MOS of 81 mortar platoon leader and instructor.

Attending KSU after the war on the GI Bill, his art classes were taught by Elmer Novotny, who at the time was director of the Art Department at KSU, and a very exceptional portrait painter.

Jim completed his Bachelor’s Degree in 1956 and his Master’s Degree in 1959. Thus began forty years of teaching in public schools, including 13 years as a school administrator. Teaching art to elementary school students sharpened his interest in drawing and painting, which became a life-long activity.

His grandfather on his father’s side was a French Canadian who raised his children in Lowell, Massachusetts, and then later moved to Ohio, where he became a homebuilder, and told his grandsons many stories of the early days of this century in New England. His speech was “down-east”
and quite different from that of Northeastern Ohio, and led to a life-long interest in the
New England area, resulting in drawings and paintings of the Maine and Massachusetts
coastal harbors and villages. Helping his grandfather build homes led to a fascination
with lighthouses, barns, fishing shacks, churches, and buildings of all kinds.