Alfred Hallett with painting of Tibetan friend c

Alfred W. Hallett (1914–1986) was an English painter, who spent most of his adult life in north India.

Life

Early life

Hallett wanted to study art from the time he was young but his parents were members of the

Exclusive Brethren The Exclusive Brethren are a subset of the Christian evangelical movement generally described as the Plymouth Brethren. They are distinguished from the Open Brethren from whom they separated in 1848. The Exclusive Brethren are now divided i ...

sect and his mother faced

excommunication Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to end or at least regulate the communion of a member of a congregation with other members of the religious institution who are in normal communion with each other. The purpose ...

for encouraging him. He studied in London, and exhibited in two Summer Exhibitions in 1937 and 1939 at the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

, London, although he never became a Royal Academician.

India

In 1938, he was invited to India to paint by the

Kashmir Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompas ...

i owner of Nedou's Hotel in Srinigar. He offered his services to the British Government during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, but refused to take up arms. He was given a job as a censor, and rose to the position of Chief Censor in the

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...

. He became the manager of sales and design after the war for the New Egerton Woollen Mills (established in 1880) in Dhariwal, Punjab, which produced woollen

worsted Worsted ( or ) is a high-quality type of wool yarn, the fabric made from this yarn, and a yarn weight category. The name derives from Worstead, a village in the English county of Norfolk. That village, together with North Walsham and Aylsham, for ...

and

hosiery Hosiery, also referred to as legwear, describes garments worn directly on the feet and legs. The term originated as the collective term for products of which a maker or seller is termed a hosier; and those products are also known generically as h ...

of all kinds. He was close friends with the accountant, Kim Butterworth and his wife Jean. After the end of the war, Hallett decided to stay in India. After the

Partition of India The Partition of British India in 1947 was the Partition (politics), change of political borders and the division of other assets that accompanied the dissolution of the British Raj in South Asia and the creation of two independent dominions: ...

in 1947 he and the Butterworth family frequently went on camping trips together in the mountains during the summers. They finally bought a church property previously used for furloughs by missionaries at Dharamkot, set amongst snow-capped mountains in beautiful deodar forests, well above McLeod Ganj,

Dharamsala Dharamshala (; also spelled Dharamsala) is the winter capital of Himachal Pradesh, India. It serves as administrative headquarters of the Kangra district after being relocated from Kangra, a city located away from Dharamshala, in 1855. Th ...

, at an altitude of about 2,200 metres (7,218 feet). He was a keen gardener and developed a friendship with the

14th Dalai Lama The 14th Dalai Lama (spiritual name Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, known as Tenzin Gyatso (Tibetan: བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: ''bsTan-'dzin rgya-mtsho''); né Lhamo Thondup), known as ...

with whom he used to share cuttings, seeds and gardening tips. In later years he repaired a lovely stone cottage, known as "Carlton Cottage" on his property which he rented to foreigners to generate some income. The house had been built by a retired English Major in the 1840s, who had originally tried to establish a strawberry farm nearby, but it was badly damaged in the massive and deadly

1905 Kangra earthquake The 1905 Kangra earthquake occurred in the Kangra Valley and the Kangra region of the Punjab Province (modern day Himachal Pradesh) in India on 4 April 1905. The earthquake measured 7.8 on the surface wave magnitude scale and killed more th ...

. He died at his home in Dharamkot on 26 April 1986.

Work

Hallett was well known for his portraits, landscape and flower paintings some of which are exhibited at the Naam Art Gallery in the small rural locality of

Sidhbari Sidhbari is a suburb of Dharamshala town, situated in the foothills of Dhauladhar mountains, in Kangra district of the state of Himachal Pradesh, India. The ''Samadhi'' (final resting place) of Sri Chinmayananda is located here. Overview S ...

, near

Dharamshala Dharamshala (; also spelled Dharamsala) is the winter capital of Himachal Pradesh, India. It serves as administrative headquarters of the Kangra district after being relocated from Kangra, a city located away from Dharamshala, in 1855. The ...

in the Indian state of

Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh (; ; "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen mountain states and is characterized by an extreme landscape featuring several peaks ...

. He also painted imaginative religious and abstract paintings, some of which may be seen in the Catholic Church and school in

Amritsar Amritsar (), historically also known as Rāmdāspur and colloquially as ''Ambarsar'', is the second largest city in the Indian state of Punjab, after Ludhiana. It is a major cultural, transportation and economic centre, located in the Majha r ...

Gallery

File:Dhauladhar Range looking west from Dharmakot.jpg, Dhauladhar Range looking west from Dharmakot,

File:Chrysanthemums by Alfred Hallett c. 1980.jpg, Chrysanthemums by Alfred Hallett c. 1980 File:Looking down over Dharamsala and Beas River.jpg, Looking down over Dharamsala and Beas River. Sketch File:Portrait of young man by Alfred Hallett, 1980.jpg, Portrait of young man. 1980

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hallett 20th-century English painters British expatriates in India English male painters 1914 births 1986 deaths 20th-century English male artists