Chuck Baird reproduction prints

Collection

Identifier: RITDSA-0070

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The Chuck Baird artwork contains eight 14 x 11 inch matted reproduction prints by Deaf artist Chuck Baird. Titles of the eight prints are:

“Njamala,”c. 1992.

“Art, No. 2,” c. 1992.

“Colors,” c. 1993.

“Left and Right,” c. 2000.

“Tyger Tyger,” c. 1992.

“American Sign Language,” c. 2010.

"Photos on black foamboard & silver ink," c. 2005.

“Deaf Do Like Moths,” c. 2010.

Dates

Creation: circa 1992-2010

Creator

Baird, Chuck (Artist, Person)

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open to researchers.

Biographical Information: Chuck Baird

Chuck Baird was born deaf in Kansas City, Mo. where he graduated from the Kansas School for the Deaf in 1967 and attended both Gallaudet College and National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) at RIT. He earned his bachelor's degree in Studio Painting in 1974. While at RIT, he played four games as a defensive lineman on the football team under coach Tom Coughlin, who now coaches the two-time Super Bowl champion New York Giants. He left the team because he said he preferred to take art classes rather than go to football practice. He was also involved with the NTID Drama Club where he acted in several productions, designed and painted sets and won the NTID Best Actor Award in 1974. He spent five years working at the National Theatre of the Deaf (NTD) painting their sets. During these years, he held a variety of jobs developing his art in New York and Delaware before he joined Spectrum, the deaf art colony in Texas.

In 1980, he joined the National Theatre of the Deaf (NTD) for the next 10 years as an actor and as a set designer. For the more artistic opportunities, he left the NTD to live nomadically in California and Arizona. He has performed at some Equity theaters. He also worked for DawnSignPress as an in-house artist, and painted a number of first deaf-related works, culminating in the coffee table book. He went back to Kansas City and moved again to Tucson setting up his own painting studios. During time, he has often traveled to paint murals or lead art workshops for deaf children at schools, summer camps, and at art festivals.

Chuck Baird was a famed artist who helped establish Deaf View Image Art (De’VIA), a type of painting depicting the life of a deaf individual in a hearing world. He was summoned to Gallaudet to help coordinating the visual arts exhibitions for Deaf Way II in 2002 and went back there again teaching art for one semester. He resided in Austin, Texas and continued creating arts at his studio and aboard. He established a visual arts foundation in his name for promoting emerging deaf artists at the Deaf Cultural Center in Olahe, Kansas. Chuck Baird died February 10, 2012 at the age of 64. (www.chuckbairdart.com\bio.html)