Dietrich Grunewald (1916-2003) Swedish/American, Large Serigraph. Title: "Water Lilies." Two informative labels attached to the back. 

Overall: 38 1/4 X 51 1/4 in. 

Sight: 35 1/2 X 48 1/2 in. 

#3787 . 

Dietrich Hermann Grunewald was born on December 22nd, 1916 in Oskarstöm, Sweden, to a German textile engineer. He became interested in art at the age of 14 and later studied in Stockholm at Welamson’s Art School between 1933 and 1935. Upon graduation he worked at an advertising agency, where he produced concept designs and illustrations. In 1938, at the urging of his father, he immigrated to the United States where he briefly attended the American Academy of Art in Chicago. However, dissatisfied with the commercial focus of the curriculum, he decided to move to San Francisco. Once there, he enrolled in a local art school, where he studied anatomical drawing and created etchings depicting scenes of daily life in the city. In 1939 he was commissioned to create scenic designs for the Royal Danish Opera production of “Himmelhøj” as part of the Golden Gate International Exposition.  It was also during this year that he had his first exhibition of etchings at the Courvoisier Gallery in San Francisco. In 1942 Dietrich relocated to Los Angeles and worked at 20th Century Fox making blueprints of scenic designs. Following his work for Fox he was hired by Paramount Pictures to produce storyboards and continuity sketches for “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” When America entered World War II he was enlisted to produce projection drawings of naval vessels for the U.S. Department of Defense, dividing his time between shipyards in Portland, Oregon and Richmond, California. He returned to Los Angeles in 1944 to work on storyboard and continuity sketches for Goldwyn Studios’ “Up in Arms” and “The Princess and the Pirate.” After working at Goldwyn, Dietrich was engaged by Walt Disney Studios to create matte drawings for the experimental live action sequences of the film “Song of the South.” The postwar years saw Dietrich shift into textile design at the suggestion of costume designer Edith Head, who introduced him to the designer and weaver Dorothy Liebes. His subsequent designs for wallpaper, drapery and upholstery patterns included Asian-inspired motifs of cherry, pine and ming trees, Southwestern pueblos, Peruvian-inspired florals and Midwestern farm scenes  Several of these were exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Art Institute of Chicago. He opened Dietrich Studios in Los Angeles in 1948 and hired others to help meet the demand for his work. Commissions over the next seven years included textile designs for various U.S. Embassies, President Truman’s “Little White House” in Key West, the Governor’s Palace in Manila, Philippines, the S.S. United States, the Ambassador Hotel and Prudential Building in Los Angeles, the Beverly Hills Hotel, the Tropicana and Flamingo hotels in Las Vegas, and the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. A series of important commissions from Liebes, T.H. Robsjohn Gibbings, Wilton T. Owen, Morley-Fletcher, and the Celanese Corporation kept him busy throughout the 1950s. In 1956 he became interested in serigraphs after working on a marketing commission for the Van Amstel Company to distribute through their stores nationwide, a job that also made him financially secure for most of his life. In 1959 he moved to Pacific Palisades, where he painted and exhibited numerous murals, paintings, and other art through private showings and public exhibitions until the early 1990s.  In 1993, he retired to LaQuinta, California, where he worked intermittently on other commissions until health problems forced him to stop. Dietrich was married four times and had five children between the marriages. In 1997 he finally became a U.S. citizen, and at the time of his death on May 21st, 2003 his prolific and diverse body of works including over 2,000 oil paintings, etchings, illustrations, drawings, textile designs, and much more.