Lindsay Bernard Hall (28 December 1859 – 14 February 1935) was an
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
-born
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
n artist, teacher and art gallery director.
Early life and career
Hall was born at
Garston, Liverpool
Garston is a district of Liverpool. Historically in Lancashire, it is bordered by the suburbs of Grassendale, Allerton, and Speke. It lies on the Eastern banks of the River Mersey.
History
In medieval times, Garston was home to a group of ...
, England, the son of a
broker
A broker is a person or firm who arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller for a commission when the deal is executed. A broker who also acts as a seller or as a buyer becomes a principal party to the deal. Neither role should be confu ...
of the same family as
Captain Basil Hall, writer of books of travel; his maternal grandfather was conductor
J. Z. Herrmann. Hall was educated at
Cheltenham College
("Work Conquers All")
, established =
, closed =
, type = Public schoolIndependent School Day and Boarding School
, religion = Church of England
, president =
, head_label = Head
, head = Nicola Huggett
...
and grew up in an atmosphere of culture. He studied painting at the
South Kensington School of Art
The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...
, Antwerp and Munich, and worked for several years in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
.
He exhibited 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 ...
and was one of the original members of the
New English Art Club
The New English Art Club (NEAC) was founded in London in 1885 as an alternative venue to the Royal Academy. It continues to hold an annual exhibition of paintings and drawings at the Mall Galleries in London, exhibiting works by both members and a ...
. He exhibited with the club in 1886 and 1887, along with
Clausen,
Sargent,
Gotch,
Kennington
Kennington is a district in south London, England. It is mainly within the London Borough of Lambeth, running along the boundary with the London Borough of Southwark, a boundary which can be discerned from the early medieval period between the ...
and others.
On the death of
George Frederick Folingsby
George Frederick Folingsby (23 August 1828 – 4 January 1891) was an Irish-born Australian painter and art educator.
Folingsby was born in the County of Wicklow, Ireland. At the age of 18 he emigrated to Canada. Later he went to New York Cit s ...
in 1891, he was appointed director of the
National Gallery of Victoria
The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum.
The NGV houses an encyclopedic art collection across two ...
and master of the
School of Arts in
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
. He began his duties in March 1892. Hall married Elsinore Mary Shuter on 18 December 1894, however she died in 1901. He held the position at the Gallery for 43 years and many of the well-known painters of Australia were trained by him in the
National Gallery of Victoria Art School.
Hall also acted as adviser to the trustees for purchases for the gallery and art museum, and when the munificent bequest of
Alfred Felton
Alfred Felton (8 November 1831 – 8 January 1904) was an Australian entrepreneur, art collector and philanthropist.
Biography
Alfred Felton was born at Maldon, Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, i ...
was received in 1904 his responsibilities were much increased. In 1905 Hall went to England to make purchases under the bequest. After his return he was expected to advise on everything submitted that might find a place in an art museum and, although he never claimed to be an expert in all these things, he supplemented his knowledge with hard reading and made relatively few mistakes.
Works
Hall's own paintings were usually interiors, nudes, or paintings of still life. He was often represented at the
Victorian Artists’ and other societies' exhibitions and held several one-man shows, but he was kept so busily employed as director and adviser, that his paintings had to be done at weekends and during vacations.
In February 1934 he again went to London as adviser to the Felton trustees and died there on 14 February 1935.
In 1912, Hall married a second time, this time to Harriet Grace Thomson, who with one son by the first marriage and two sons and a daughter by the second marriage, survived him.
Hall was a tall, distinguished man; courteous with strong convictions. He was extremely conservative in almost everything from his art to his politics. The only exception was his advocacy of the
Baconian theory
The Baconian theory of Shakespeare authorship holds that Sir Francis Bacon, philosopher, essayist and scientist, wrote the plays which were publicly attributed to William Shakespeare. Various explanations are offered for this alleged subterfuge ...
, afterwards modified to a firm conviction that whether Bacon had any hand in the plays or not, the author was not the man from Stratford. In other matters his appeal was to tradition and the expert. Hall was an honest man, he could see no merit in the so-called
modern school of painting and he said so. Its followers seemed to him to violate the first principles of art. His own paintings were carefully planned and always well drawn. His colour was not always so good, and this was especially apparent in some of his earlier nudes.
The examples of his work in the Melbourne,
Sydney
Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
and
Adelaide
Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...
galleries show him to have been a conscientious and excellent artist. As a teacher his somewhat cold manner, which really came from a kind of shyness, sometimes repelled his pupils in his earlier days, but he mellowed as he grew older. There has been much difference of opinion as to the value of his methods of teaching, but his long roll of distinguished pupils suggests that his insistence on sincerity, truth and good drawing, must have been of great value to them. In any case, Hall's personality was a strong influence for the good of art in his time.
File:Edmund la Touche Armstrong, by Lindsay Bernard Hall.jpg, ''Edmund la Touche Armstrong
Edmund la Touche Armstrong (1864–1946) was an Australian historian and librarian.
He was chief librarian of the Public Library of Victoria, afterwards known as the State Library of Victoria.
References
1864 births
1946 deaths
Peop ...
'', c1925, by Lindsay Bernard Hall (State Library of Victoria
State Library Victoria (SLV) is the state library of Victoria, Australia. Located in Melbourne, it was established in 1854 as the Melbourne Public Library, making it Australia's oldest public library and one of the first free libraries in the ...
)
File:Bernard Hall - The quest - Google Art Project.jpg, ''The Quest'', c1905, by Lindsay Bernard Hall (National Gallery of Australia
The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...
)
Death and burial
He died in London on 14 February 1935 and was buried at
Golders Green cemetery.
''The Argus'' 21 February 1935, p.10
/ref> Among those in attendance were Australian artists George Bell George Bell may refer to:
Law and politics
* George Joseph Bell (1770–1843), Scottish jurist and legal author
* George Alexander Bell (1856–1927), Canadian pioneer and Saskatchewan politician
* George Bell (Canadian politician) (1869–1940) ...
, I.M. Cohen, James Quinn, Bess Tait and Marion Jones as well as British sculptors Gilbert Bayes
Gilbert William Bayes (4 April 1872 – 10 July 1953) was an English sculptor. His art works varied in scale from medals to large architectural clocks, monuments and equestrian statues and he was also a designer of some note, creating chess piec ...
and Lady Hilton Young.
References
*Ann E. Galbally,
Hall, Lindsay Bernard (1859 - 1935)
, ''Australian Dictionary of Biography
The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the Australian National University (ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's ...
'', Volume 9, MUP, 1983, pp 164–165. Retrieved 19 January 2009
*
External links
*Bernard Hall Papers at the National Gallery of Australia Research Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hall, Lindsay Bernard
1859 births
1935 deaths
Australian people of English descent
19th-century Australian painters
20th-century Australian painters
Artists from Liverpool
Artists from Melbourne
19th-century English painters
Archibald Prize finalists
Australian art teachers
Australian portrait painters
Australian male painters
19th-century Australian male artists
20th-century Australian male artists
19th-century English male artists
English male painters