Guillermo "Bill" Wagner Granizo (

né The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

William Joseph Wagner; March 11, 1923 – November 1995) is an American artist, known for his brightly colored ceramic tile murals which often featured historical or autobiographical references. He was active in Northern California from 1960 to 1995, and lived in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

Ben Lomond Ben Lomond (, ), , is a mountain in the Scottish Highlands. Situated on the eastern shore of Loch Lomond, it is the most southerly of the Munros. Ben Lomond lies within the Ben Lomond National Memorial Park and the Loch Lomond and The Trossach ...

, San Jose, and

Benicia Benicia ( , ) is a city in Solano County, California, located on the north bank of the Carquinez Strait in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. It served as the capital of California for nearly thirteen months from 1853 to 1854. ...

Early life and education

Guillermo Wagner Granizo was named William Joseph Wagner at birth, he was born in

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

on March 11, 1923. His mother Dora Granizo was

Nicaragua Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ...

n, and his father Joseph Wagner was of German descent and from the East Coast. Granizo lived in

Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

and Nicaragua for eleven years in childhood. Upon returning to San Francisco he attended St. Dominic’s School in the

Western Addition The Western Addition is a district in San Francisco, California, United States. Location The Western Addition is located between Van Ness Avenue, the Richmond District, the Haight-Ashbury and Lower Haight neighborhoods, and Pacific Heights. ...

neighborhood, and High School of Commerce. He served in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

and was injured on Utah Beach during

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...

. After the war, Granizo attended San Francisco College of Art (later known as San Francisco Art Institute) for a year, although some sources state he graduated in 1949.

Career

Granizo worked as an

art director Art director is a title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, live-action and animated film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supe ...

KRON-TV KRON-TV (channel 4) is a television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving as the San Francisco Bay Area's outlet for The CW. Owned and operated by The CW's majority owner, Nexstar Media Group, KRON-TV has studios ...

, a television station in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1950s, and later worked on directing educational films. He started doing ceramic tile murals in 1970, and at that time he changed his name to Guillermo Wagner Granizo. He worked with the Stonelight Tile Company of San Jose for many years. His works are made of brightly colored ceramic tiles, and feature bold geometric shapes and abstract characters. He would often sign his work "BWG".

Personal life

After World War II, Granizo married Amalia Mary "Mollie" Castillo, from a prominent Guatemala family. They had two sons, and divorced in the early 1970s. Granizo's second marriage was to artist Lark Lucas, and they lived in

, California. The couple separated in 1984, and Granizo moved to San Jose, California to be closer to the tile factory. Granizo moved to Benicia, California in 1980 and resided there until his death in 1995. He died in November 1995 in Benicia, from cancer.

Public art work

This is a select list of notable public artwork created by Granizo, and listed by year of creation.

References

External links

* Video
Monday on Strange Inheritance: Eight Tons of Art
(2017) by Strange Inheritance on

Fox Business Fox Business (officially known as Fox Business Network, or FBN) is an American conservative business news channel and website publication owned by the Fox News Media division of Fox Corporation. The channel broadcasts primarily from studios ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wagner Granizo, Guillermo 1923 births 1995 deaths Artists from San Francisco 20th-century American ceramists American male artists American muralists American people of Nicaraguan descent American people of German descent Public art in California 20th-century Nicaraguan artists San Francisco Art Institute alumni United States Army personnel of World War II