Robert Beverly Hale

Robert Beverly Hale (1901 -November 14, 1985) was an artist, curator of American paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and instructor of artistic anatomy at the Art Students League of New York. He was also the author of well-known books on artistic anatomy such as "Anatomy Lessons from the Great Masters", "Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters" and "Master Class in Figure Drawing".

Hale was born into a prominent family in Boston, Massachusetts, [ [http://www.artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=2124 "I Will Never Look at Painting the Same Way Again", ARTnews] ] but grew up in New York City, and studied at Columbia University, where he did post-graduate work at the School of Architecture. He also studied at the Art Students League under George Bridgman and William McNulty, and at the Sorbonne in Paris. [ [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,826245,00.html "Negative Realist", review of Hale exhibition in TIME, 1960.] ]

From 1942 to 1949 Hale worked as Editorial Associate for Art News magazine. In 1949 he became curator for contemporary American art at the Metropolitan Museum. [TIME] A long-time Instructor of Drawing and Lecturer on Anatomy at the League, and Adjunct Professor of Drawing at Columbia, Hale taught and wrote on the principles of chiaroscuro and observation from life, encouraging his students to see and draw forms in nature as the geometric "mass conceptions" of cylinders, cubes, or spheres. [ARTnews] His lectures at the League included demonstrations of life-size figure drawings, much as had those of his teacher and predecessor, George Bridgman. [Hale, Robert Beverly, "Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters". Watson-Guptill, 1964.]

Hale's draftsmanship was featured in one-man shows at the Stamford Museum and at the Staempfli Gallery in New York. In addition to several books on drawing, Hale authored numerous articles, including one on drawing in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and an entry on "The History of American Painting" for the Grolier Encyclopaedia. [Hale.] He also had verse and fiction published in The New Yorker and Mademoiselle magazines.

His careers as instructor, curator, and artist were apt to overl
de Kooning came up to my little studio there and said that I was ruining any number of people by telling them about anatomy". [ [http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/transcripts/hale68.htm Interview with Robert Beverly Hale at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art] ]

Publications

*Anatomy Lessons from the Great Masters by Robert Beverly Hale and Terence Cole. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1977. ISBN 0-8230-0222-5
*Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters by Robert Beverly Hale. New York: Wason-Guptill Publications, 1989. ISBN 0-8230-1401-0
*Artistic Anatomy by Dr. Paul Richer, translated by Robert Beverly Hale. New York: Watson Guptill Publications, 1971. ISBN 0-8230-0297-7

References