Chuck Baird: Deaf American Painters

Chuck Baird was a deaf American painter and performer. He was born deaf in Kansas City, along with his 3 older sisters. He was born in February 22, 1947. He opened an aesthetic of deaf culture in which visual art converts a deaf worldview. His career spanned over 35 years, and included painting, sculpting, acting, storytelling, and teaching. He received his art education from Mrs. Grace Bilger, a renowned watercolorist and graduated in 1967. He enrolled at Gallaudet University but then transferred to the Rochester Institute of Technology, where he received his BFA in Painting in 1974. Baird spent his first 5 summers after graduation at the National Theatre of the Deaf (NTD) painting their sets. During these years, he held a variety of jobs while working to develop his art. He had his first major exhibition at the World Federation of the Deaf Conference in …show more content…
During the 10 years Chuck Baird spent with NTD as an actor and set designer, he designed and painted a large number of sets for them. He is probably best remembered for his work in "King of Hearts," based on Phillippe de Broca's cult film classic. In the role of the Painter, Chuck recreated the entire set each night in front of a live audience. After an art residency at the California School for the Deaf in Fremont, he moved to San Diego in 1992 to work for DawnSignPress as an in-house artist, and painted a number of new Deaf-related works, culminating in the book, "Chuck Baird, 35 Plates." Baird went back to Kansas City in 1993 to establish a painting and sculpture studio. He created a 150-foot long collage/mural of Deaf history and language for The Learning Center for Deaf Children in Framingham, MA, for the school's 25th anniversary celebration, in June of 1995. Chuck Baird was an amazing artist whom had a different perspective over ASL. He died February 10, 2012. But in addition to his artwork, he was a renowned as an actor and ASL