In the Footsteps of painter Richard Hall

Mrs. Corby Fox Source: Kotitaide-lehti 08/1909, Jyväskylä University   Richard Hall held a private exhibition at the House of Nobility in Helsinki from October 10 to November 8, 1909. The exhibition was open daily from noon to 4 p.m. The venue was prestigious, located in the administrative center of Helsinki, one block from Senate Square. The exhibition proved popular, attracting a total of 2,675 visitors. It drew considerable attention in the press, with several news articles and reviews being written about it. Hall continued to work during the exhibition, painting three portraits. It seems that he remained in Finland for quite some time after the exhibition, at least until August of the following year. At that time, he wrote a letter from his mother's home in Villa Rauhala with the aim of arranging a visit to Finland for the artist's daughter and her spouse. A good selection of source material from the exhibition at the House of Nobility has been preserved. The National Gall...

Left: W.K. Vanderbilt, photograph circa 1900. Source: Wikimedia Commons Right: Photograph of Richard Hall’s painting Mr. W. K. Vanderbilt. Source:  Hall Richard Pintor [1930s-1960s], British Library   Richard Hall made his definitive breakthrough as a portrait painter in the spring of 1901, when he held a solo exhibition at Galerie Georges Petit. I wrote about the exhibition in the blog post Successful Exhibition in Paris . That autumn, he painted a portrait in Paris of Mr. Vanderbilt, who belonged to one of the wealthiest families in the United States. A year later, in the fall of 1902, Hall stated that he had traveled to New York to paint other members of the family. Writing this article has been exceptionally challenging due to the abundance of conflicting information. The sources include old newspaper articles and the archive Hall Richard Pintor [1930s–1960s] , published by the British Library. The archive was created when Hall, while living in Argentina, sent his p...

Illustration from the newspaper article  L'Éclair 11 May 1901   On Thursday, 2 May 1901, an exhibition of Richard Hall opened at Galerie Georges Petit. Located at 8, rue de Sèze, it was open from 2 PM to 7 PM. The exhibition received extensive coverage in the French press. Thanks to these articles, it’s possible to form an impression of the event, even though I don’t have access to a catalogue or images. The tone of the reporting was influenced by the newspapers’ political leanings: the most detailed review was published by the left-leaning La Dépêche Toulouse, which did not hold back its criticism. The article describes the exhibition in great detail, helping to reconstruct what works were likely on display. Georges Petit was one of the most renowned gallery owners in Paris. Archives from his business have been digitized and available in French National Library’s Gallica service . However, I wasn’t able to find materials related to this specific exhibition, so for now, we don...

Richard Hall in his Paris studio. Undated photograph Source:  Hall Richard Pintor [1930s–1960s], British Library I’ve previously reviewed Richard Hall’s earlier residences in France in the blog post Places of residence 1883–1900 . In 1900, Hall returned permanently from Brittany, and his address was solely in Paris at Avenue Victor-Hugo 43. Once again, I’ve consulted the Musée d’Orsay’s database on the Paris Salons , which lists the artist’s addresses up to 1914. That year also marks the final exhibition for which digitized Salon records are available online. Breakthrough in Paris Hall’s career as a portrait painter took off in May 1901, when he held an exhibition at Galerie Georges Petit in Paris. The show, which featured portraits among other works, received extensive coverage in the French press and attracted a large audience. Following this exhibition, Hall became a sought-after portraitist. It appears that after 1901, he painted portraits during all his travels—which were num...

  Portrait d'un homme, 1897 (Portrait of a Man) Oil on Canvas, 110,2 x 91,2 cm Musée d'arts de Nantes Photo: Cécile Clos / Musée d'arts de Nantes I’ve mentioned in a few earlier blog posts that Richard Hall lived between 1897 and 1899 at two addresses: Avenue Victor-Hugo 43 in Paris and Rue La Galissonnière 3 in Nantes. From digitized newspapers in the French National Library, I found two articles related to Hall’s work in Nantes. They reveal that he held exhibitions there and had a studio at least from the beginning of 1898. In addition to these news articles, this post draws on information from the website of INHA , the French National Institute for Art History, which provides insights into the art scene in Nantes. News Coverage A news item published in Journal le Phare de la Loire on December 23, 1897 , states that Hall’s works were frequently admired in the window display of Laugé, and that he “has just held a very beautiful private exhibition at the Préaubert gallery....

Moines trappistes; abbaye de Melleray (Loire-Inférieure) Trappist monks Exhibited at the Salon in 1897 Photo: Salon catalogue 1897  Many aspects of Richard Hall's life in the 1890s remain unclear. He reported that he married his cousin Julia Perregaux (in an article written by Mauri R. Hall, her surname is Cornetz) in 1881. She passed away in 1891. The marriage produced son Georges and daughter Agnes. According to the website geni.com they were both born in 1884. As I mentioned in my  blog post about Hall's places of residence, his address was in Le Pouldu in 1890–1893, in Paris in 1894–1896, and in both Nantes and Paris in 1897–1899. I am currently aware of 27 works that Hall produced during those years. Not all of them have photographs. After Hall moved back to Paris, his works were mainly portraits. It was probably then that the development began that led to his successful career as a portrait painter in the following decade. Working in the abbey In an interview with the ...

Overview of the interior of the Palace of Fine Arts, 1889. Musée Carnavalet, Histoire de Paris  Photo: Wikimedia Commons World expos (Exposition Universelle) had been held since 1851. They showcased new technical inventions, construction, science, culture, and art, among other things. Countries and companies participated in the exhibitions. The 1889 World expo was held in Paris. It was open from May 6 to October 31, 1889. There were over 61,000 exhibitors and more than 32 million visitors. Large exhibition halls were built for the event using the latest construction techniques of the time. World expos were mega-events of their time, where new ideas and inventions spread – after all, this was long before the advent of television and the Internet. Richard Hall participated in the world expo in the section presenting Swedish art. His friend from his student days, Richard Bergh, was the exhibition's commissioner. This explains Hall's participation, even though he had been living in...

Philip Tassier: Le Pouldu: farmyard, cirka 1910 Source: Wikimedia Commons Richard Hall has reported that he lived in Brittany for six years. This was probably between 1887 or 1888 and 1893, as I wrote in my previous blog post . Apparently, Hall and his family lived in Le Pouldu for most of that time. It is a small village by the sea on the southern coast of Brittany, southeast of Quimper. Hall's move was part of a larger trend: at that time, artists were flocking to Brittany. It was considered to have an authentic, distinctive culture and picturesque landscapes. My source material includes the publication Taiteilijoiden Bretagne 1800-luvun lopussa (Artists in Brittany at the End of the 19th Century, 1998) by the Akseli Gallen-Kallela Museum, as well as two books published in France about Nordic artists in Brittany: Artistes finlandais en Bretagne 1880-1890 (1990) and Échappées nordiques: Scandinavian and Finnish Artists in France 1870-1914 (2008). These are the only recent book...

Richard Bergh: Den lille krymplingen / Pojke från Concarneau, 1881 (A Little Crippled / Boy from Concarneau) Oil on canvas, 90 x 70 cm Nationalmuseum Photo: Cecilia Heisser, Nationalmuseum, Sweden As I mentioned in my blog post on Laurens and Benjamin-Constant , Richard Hall's postgraduate studies in Paris remain shrouded in mystery. The Swedish government's travel grant of 3,000 kronor was intended to cover two years of postgraduate studies. Hall moved to Paris in the fall of 1881, so based on that, we can calculate that the grant lasted until the fall of 1883. After that, he had to trade his studies and freer lifestyle for earning a living by selling his paintings. We also know that Hall married his Swiss cousin Julie Cornetz in 1881. In addition, he has said that for a few years he shared a studio with his fellow student from Stockholm, Richard Bergh, who was a good friend of his. In the 1880s, Nordic artists formed a close-knit artist colony in Paris. I have not yet found ...