Enchantment the Art and Life of Lilian Westcott Hale: America's Linear Impressionist

By Diane Elizabeth Kelleher

As the title suggests, this book concerns the art and life of the world's only "American Linear Impressionist", Lilian Westcott Hale. Born in Connecticut in 1881, Hale was educated primarily at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and lived for many years in nearby Dedham, moving to Charlottesville, Virginia after the death of her beloved educator, art critic, author, and painter husband, Philip Leslie Hale. A woman, Hale far outpaced the success of many men, including her husband. During her early decades of activity, Hale garnered innumerable naational awards, accolades, and prizes, and international acclaim for her oil portraits of children, women in interiors, and charcoal sketches of snowy landscpes, all created in an Impressionist style utilizing only vertical strokes. Hale was the originator and sole practitioner of a technique which paradoxically used line in an Impressionist manner. While her classic art fell out of favor during the Modernist 1940s and later, it is now once again very much in vogue. My relationship with the artist's only child, her daughter, Nancy, was of immeasurable assistance in the production of this book.

Diane Elizabeth Kelleher
Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, 2013.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 28, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491816165

Diane Elizabeth Kelleher

Born and educated in Massachusetts, Miss Kelleher began her undergraduate studies in the Liberal Arts at prestigious Wheaton College in Norton, where she was on the Dean’s List. A transfer student, she received the degree of “Bachelor of Arts with Distinction” from Simmons College, Boston. Graduating in the top five percent of her class while majoring in Sociology, Economics and Art History, beyond “Distinction” additional baccalaureate honors conferred included: Academy (Collegiate Honor Society), Departmental Recognition (History of Art), Dean’s List and receipt of academic grants. Further general art historical studies and specialized new directions reflecting a burgeoning interest in American Art and Culture as well as European Painting of the Nineteenth Century, were undertaken within the Department of the History of Art, Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy program at Boston University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. By age twenty-four, she had independently researched and authored her first book and the first art historical book ever written on Boston artist, Lilian Westcott Hale - titled Enchantment: The Art and Life of Lilian Westcott Hale, America’s Linear Impressionist. A year later came the independently researched and written Unlikely Icon and the majority of Sense, Sensibility and Sensation: The Marvelous Miniatures and Perfect Pastels of Laura Coombs Hills, America’s Lyrical Impressionist. Eventually, new interests in English Literature beckoned, so Kelleher completed a Master of Arts Degree in English Literature at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, where she received a full scholarship and wrote her book The Rose Upon the Trellis: William Faulkner’s Lena Grove. Currently enrolled in the Master of Science Degree in Business Administration at Worcester State University, Kelleher is pursuing business courses while editing her soon-to-be-published book on Laura Coombs Hills. She was also accepted to study at Clark University, having received the Clark Alumni Scholarship. Her other five books include: The Fantasmagorical Feline Adventures of Little Miss Libby; The Secrets of Willow Creek; How to Research, Write and Publish an Art History Book in American Art; and Unlikely Icon: The Art, Culture and Philosophy of Forest Hills Cemetery, Boston: A Nineteenth Century Symbol of American Values and A Brief Book of Children’s Tales. She is the niece of the renowned Hollywood writer and producer, the late Paul W. Keyes of Paul W. Keyes Productions, Westlake Village, California.

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ENCHANTMENT

The Art and Life of Lilian Westcott Hale

America’s Linear Impressionist

Diane Elizabeth Kelleher

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© 2013 Diane Elizabeth Kelleher. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/12/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-1607-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-1616-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013916782

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Note to the Reader

Introduction

Chapter One: Heart, Hearth and Heritage

Chapter Two: Ties to New England

Chapter Three: Style and Stylish Women

Chapter Four: Snowy Landscapes and Nineteenth Century Traditions

Chapter Five: Bountiful Still-Lifes

Chapter Six: Children and The Critics

Chapter Seven: Galleries and The Gold

Chapter Eight: The Aesthetics of Beauty and Boston’s Traditions

Chapter Nine: Linear Impressionism

Chapter Ten: Legacies of Ten and The Eight: American Impressionism, New York Realists and Modernism

Chapter Eleven: Changing Worlds: Nineteenth Century Aesthetic Origins and the Twentieth Century Cultural Milieu

Chapter Twelve: The Art of New Beginnings: Warmer Climate, Warmer Tones

Conclusion

Appendixes

Special Thanks To Special Friends

Acknowledgments

Chronology—Lilian Westcott Hale 1881-1963

Gallery and Museum Associations

List of Titles

Aesthetic Pleasures and the Undeclared Feminist: A History of Exhibition for Paintings and Drawings by Lilian Westcott Hale

Aesthetic Pleasure and the Undeclared Feminist Notes to the History of Exhibition of Lilian Westcott Hale

Index to Reproductions

Index to Original Manuscripts’ Artwork

Bibliography

ENCHANT

The Art and Life of

America’s Linear

1881-

Diane Elizabeth

MENT

Lilian Westcott Hale

Impressonist

1963

Kelleher

For—

My Mother, Hildur Englund Kelleher,

and the late Nancy Hale Bowers

Acknowledgments

It is with deep sense of heartfelt relief that I pen these last few phrases of this, the tangible manuscript, thereby relieving not only my mind’s eye of its curatorial burden as steadfast steward of my visual thoughts born nearly a decade ago, but forgiving as well the intangible debt: an honest promise which I made as a young woman to the artist’s daughter, novelist Nancy Hale, to apply my art historical knowledge, however imperfect, toward an explanation of the very pleasurable, common ground we shared: our interest in the art and life of her mother: The Art and Life of Lilian Westcott Hale.

A fellow Bostonian art heart, my admiration for the deliciously delicate, unprecociously precious, fine and admirable work of Lilian Westcott Hale began predictably yet inauspiciously, upon initial discovery, during an encounter subsequent to graduation from Simmons College in Boston, one as emerged from the long tradition of volunteerism indigenous to the arts: engagement as a Curatorial Assistant at a local Massachusetts museum. Once initiated, that curiosity persisted throughout my days as a graduate student at Boston University, during which time I researched and wrote successfully about the artist. Next came a hurriedly written article requested by the Boston Athenaeum for a 1981 exhibition of Hale’s drawings. It was between these latter two events, that my fortunes were unexpectedly enriched by the privilege and joy of friendship with the artist’s only child, her daughter, Nancy, whose expression of interest in my research I valued highly, whose subtle humor I thoroughly enjoyed, and whose kind assistance proved to be the truest Godsend.

Underlying the relatively brief words as follow are the extensive underpinnings of original research, both primary and secondary, including: the requisite travel to obtain oral histories from relatives and friends of the late artist: and contact with various libraries, galleries, and museums; all conducted at a moment in time when consistent with standard art historical training, the art of Lilian Westcott Hale was decidedly not in vogue. Happily, in hindsight, the pendulum has swung, perceptions have changed, and those feelings which both Nancy and I shared over afternoon tea—that her mother’s work deserved closer scrutiny—have gently blossomed into a savory vindication. We knew that this book would be the sole authorized, and initial scholarly, monograph on the art and life of Lilian Westcott Hale. We day-dreamed that it might inspire yet another amateur, similarly intent upon research and writing, to contribute to the enhancement of the meager body of knowledge then associated with the classically beautiful, highly appealing, yet sorely neglected creations of American art, whose birthright was neither the bustling hubs of Modernist New York, nor the Impressionistically experimental Philadelphia, but rather the wrought-ironed, cherry blossomed, magnolia swept, cloistered sanctuary of conservative Boston.

As a general, art historical axiom: brevity of text belies the painstaking processes of methodology intrinsic to endeavors of original research. This work is no exception. My own explorations were begun during my early twenties, from a position of unabashed naivete with no more than a simple idea, at a time when readymade books on this topic were annoyingly conspicuous by their absence, and precious little analysis existed anywhere. For guidance, there lay extant: precisely one brief, periodical article written during the second decade of this century. A shining triptych of alternate sources became my primary beacon lights. The microfiche newspaper clippings, housed at the Archives of American Art in Boston, provided that welcome first hope for the brokerage of information. Enlivened by discovery, encouraged with bits of data garnered from excerpts gleaned from specific exhibition reviews, general art editorials, and obituaries; I wrote to the many institutions cited, requesting archival verification of reported data. In the interim, the unindexed, alumna scrapbooks of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, were investigated: year by year, page by page, line by line; a tedious process made more so by sporatic, Spartan, cacophonous seating arrangements: a tall, hard, painting stool misaligned with a short, small drafting table, well within earshot of absolutely everything. Yet, all was easily tolerated in the spirit of a pursuit destined to unearth some tender morsel about Lilian Westcott Hale. The rewards of this second source were propitious. Indeed, devoid of these important leads: the exhibition dates, painting names, patron names, and reproductions; the responses my use of them generated; and a listing in the Index of American Biography, through which I read of the life and whereabouts of Hale’s daughter; any measure of success would have been precluded. Throughout the research and writing of this book, I have been surprised, grateful and touched by the sincere responses of support offered by many people encountered throughout the journey.

Of those who have facilitated the completion of this book, I am surely most indebted to my third source: the only child of Lilian Westcott Hale. Nancy Hale Bowers, who graciously received me at both her summer home at Folly Cove, Cape Ann, Massachusetts; and her primary, winter residence in Charlottesville, Virginia; providing me access to original works of art; three of her mother’s hand-written journals; a parade of gallery photographs from her private, family files; patient answers to an insufferable host of research questions; and as requested, my hostess assumed the role of cultural conduit, arranging for me to photograph works of art, while conducting further interviews with friends and relatives of her late mother still resident in the Charlottesville area. Equally important were: her meticulous review of my cumbersome research chronology and exhibition history for factual accuracy; her candor throughout our numerous, structured conversations during afternoon tea; and her sense of humor as she suggested that I try on a set of golden amber framed glasses belonging to her late mother, that I might truly see the world through the eyes of Lilian Westcott Hale. Imagine my delight as a young, graduate student and avid admirer of the work of Lilian Westcott Hale, as I sat sipping tea and chatting with the artist’s daughter in her home, having merely to glance in any direction to glimpse paintings, I had read about in the early stages of my research: ‘Bill in Sailor Suit’ in this room, ‘Green Taffeta’ in another, more stacks of paintings downstairs, more paintings in other rooms, more friends and relatives to interview… a signed copy of Nancy’s book in hand—one of her many gifts. Kindred spirits indeed! No one could have been more kind or more understanding than Nancy Hale.

Beyond the resource materials housed at New England institutions, such as the yearbooks of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the newspaper clippings of exhibition records of numerous Boston galleries, and the Hale Papers, housed at the Archives of American Art, Boston; all of which provided a rich, indispensable source of documentary material; there were other participants associated with the formal and informal grapevine. Hale’s patrons, her former model, friends, neighbors, relatives, librarians and curators situated throughout the country, assisted by responding to numerous inquiries, for which I am grateful and for whom I have reserved a specific appendix. Hale’s personal letters archived at Smith College, Northhampton, Massachusetts do not figure prominently as sources simply because the artist’s handwriting was so unerringly difficult to decipher. Special thanks are due my former professor, gentleman, scholar, and renowned art historian, Dr. Theodore E. Stebbins, for his technical reading of the manuscript and his welcome words of kind praise and encouragement.

Throughout, my predominant motivation has reflected the need: to effect some confluence of field research sources, including historical documentation on the verge of banishment; and to pay tribute to an artist by bringing her works to light in a manner which provides interesting, readable text for the casual reader, as well as a few tidbits of factual information of value to the art historian. Essentially, this book was conceived, researched, and written with all the dedication, enthusiasm and warmth as one amateur could muster, with the hope that each reader to turn its pages would be rewarded by that moment of discovery and a new personal fondness for the gentle art of Lilian Westcott Hale.

D.E.K.

Shrewsbury, Massachusetts,

Summer 1978, 1987

Note to the Reader

Unfortunately, due to copyright law restrictions and complications beyond my control, none of the one hundred and sixty three reproductions of the images of Lilian Westcott Hale’s work could legally be included in this edition, as they appear in the original manuscripts. Production of the book proceeded because of the wealth of other research information provided. Perhaps, at some future date, if these images become available, the book may be reissued in its original, standard format from 1978/1987 which would include the lovely, captivating designs of Lilian Westcott Hale.

The Art and Life

of

Lilian Westcott Hale

1881-1963

America’s Linear Impressionist

By Diane Elizabeth Kelleher

Introduction

"Journal Entry—Day 3: Charlottesville, Virginia, March 1979.

Winter to Spring very soon. Outside, barely twilight! Gorgeous views of changing colors! Every vista drenched and distinguished through illumination’s movement! . . . Wondrous visual effects: the children born of Light’s own days and seasons. Color, light, land, essence—windswept as far as the eye can see… across the rolling, Virginia countryside, almost endless… finite by virtue, only, of a ridge of mountains’ distant rising, so poised as to kiss the skyward tip of Heaven… And all controlled, outside, by the caprice of Nature’s recantations. Surely, God’s handiwork, set down that any could, but those who would… might see all best through ‘the colossus’—floor to ceiling and twenty to twenty-five feet wide—the bowed window in the home owned by Nancy Hale. How her mother must have loved this! More luminous than the Dedham’s Sandy Downs, or the Gloucester studio! Perfect for drawing, painting—seeing!

Inside, ambiance… fire crackling, warm and glowing! Tea brewing strong as candid conversation. A ritual begins to repeat itself, separated by half a century… Two distinct afternoons: . . . Previously, Lilian Westcott Hale, herself; . . . subsequently, now, a new generation… Conversations at afternoon tea: her art—the topic—still unchanged. Begin, anew!

Oh good! Steeping hot English tea arrives… drafts sipped from cups of blue Wedgewood, their color paler than the blue of my own English china at home… Fire in the fireplace, still steady, radiantly glowing… warming the cockles of the heart of hostess and guest and perhaps the well-known child above… as painting of ‘Mark Hardin in Sailor Suit’ asserts its presence… . oversees all, hanging above the mantle, well-positioned to command topics of conversation, to introduce his compatriots… like the little girl adorned with ‘Green Taffeta’ secreted away, as if purposely hiding, waiting to spring discovered upon any who ’round the corner… Canvases are far larger… . with colors more deeply, vitalistically scrumptious, than previously imagined. And the images of these children… their faces, their personalities, their souls… so hauntingly real, they make me feel a strong yet awkward burden of recognition… as though I should remember them… all of them… as though I have known them all of my life, though we have never met… as though by their own intentions, they are eaves-dropping on Nancy and I.

Back to the interview questions. It’s only Day Three of ten scheduled here in Virginia. A delightfully refreshing, proper Bostonian is Nancy Hale… and in the Dedham tradition of Mrs. Farnsworth Loomis, Lilian Westcott Hale’s first portrait patron, . . . now, Nancy is the embodiment of the adept hostess, perfectly suited to perpetuation of the lady’s business milieu… the quintessential afternoon tea. Again, we are each ready and comfortably conversant. And so, continues the tete-a-tete with Nancy Hale, the novelist, and the daughter of a unique, aesthetic treasure… Lillian Westcott Hale… the creator of what I shall term from here on in—‘American Linear Impressionism’."

D.E.K. Journal

D.K.: Alright Good. Well, this is another personality question about your mother. One of your ‘old-time’ neighbors, Mrs. Anson Howe Smith, told me that your mother was very reserved, aloof, Is that true? Was she?

N.H. Oh, yes. Georgianna Smith. Oh, be sure to give her my love when you go back… She babysat my other son, William Wertenbecker. Mother painted him too, but you know that. Mother? Why yes, I think the neighbors did think she was, you know, sort of ‘stuck up’; but it wasn’t so. She was just too busy to socialize… enormously busy… painting, portraits all the time. She was shy… timid, almost… you now, sort of fearful of people. She was better known than my father (painter, teacher, critic, Philip Leslie Hale). But, you know, they were different from the others in Dedham… . They were painters!"

N. Hale, Interview

Charlottesville, 1979

. . . And indeed, quite a painter!! . . .

Chapter One

Heart, Hearth and Heritage

So highly regarded and popular in the art world of early twentieth century Boston, Lilian Westcott Hale has yet to receive serious, artistic consideration. Why was her work so popular? What were her ties to New England? As an artist, what was her artistic ethos? As the creator of a body of work, that is, an evidentiary, aesthetic artifact of cultural knowledge, what lessons and truths would Hale intend we garner from the nature and nuture of her particular genus of art, brought to life as it was encapsulated within her particular timeframe of American art and world history? Forever poised, as emerging from a unique place in American history, Lilian Westcott Hale and her art, then as now, lay claim to a specific niche in the American soul.

A national Academician, and the wife of artist, author, and educator, Philip Leslie Hale, Lilian Westcott Hale heralded a tradition in vogue among conservative American artists, uniquely prevalent in Boston during the decades of the teens, twenties, and thirties; whose sources translate more readily from French Impressionist artistic origins, nineteenth century Aesthetics, and Victorian literature; than such relatively contemporaneous innovations as those educed from the modernist trends of New York, and even Philadelphia based artists at work on the American homefront. In many ways, Hale’s oeuvre remains a temporal placeholder in American art as strongly linked to a politically conservative, socially proper segment of its own time, as the aesthetic predelictions of its previous generation. And, if decidedly less readily esteemed by one faction of its own and subsequent modernist generations; nevertheless, Hale’s oeuvre presents us with a standard of taste and technique so inherently timeless as to conceal within, the savory, simmering seeds of its own popular reawakening; one well positioned to bewitchingly captivate through its renascence, the appreciative praise of innumerable onlookers of subsequent generations.

Genteel, pristine, technically proficient; the enchanting gifts of Lilian Westcott Hale, proffer visual treasures enamoured of such engaging, classic issues as: femininity and beauty; portraiture and verisimilitude; Impressionism, Naturalism, and the landscape tradition; the historically revered heritage of American Empiricism balanced with the aesthetic legacy of European inspired Impressionism, as filtered through American interpretations, a Bostonian heritage, and her own unique development of a technique we may quite appropriately refer to as Linear Impressionism. Hale eloquently resolved each and all of these themes, at a time in American art when the important issues and developments bantered about major cultural and artistic locii had already begun a profound process of change: a powerful advance toward modernism underscored by a tumultuous rapidity.

The late teens and twenties in avante garde New York virtually steamed with the clamor of expectations borne on the wings of such newly imported ideas as: Freudian analysis, French automatism in literature and painting; a new composite of cultural ideologies brought by new waves of immigrants bound by the dictates of new laws. And, to be reckoned into the complex aesthetic equation were, as well, such actively lingering legacies as: the remnants and revelations, the ideological icons, associated with the modernist Armory Show of the early teens; in addition to a plethora of evolving paradygms vociferiously inherent in the vanguard of the cultural milieu, as were clearly recognizable to the common man through such symbolic national icons as: the suffragettes of the woman’s right’s movement; the divas of economic excess—the flappers; the muckrackers of reform politics; the tenements chronicalling the demographics of the expansion of urbanism; and the stately homes of the burgeoning wealth makers and breakers of booming industry and rampant capitalism. In their turn, assuming a retreatist mantle, the thirties harbored new concerns of economic depression, and an increasingly dislodged American cultural psyche racked by insecurity as became increasingly evident in the realm of an internal migration exemplified by images of such displaced Americans as rural refugees from agrarian destitution; in addition to the calcification of novel types of emerging regionalism, whose underpinnings lurked in racial and class distinctions, not the least of which notations were symbolized by Negro images and their creative solutions in art, literature, and music known as The Jazz Age. It was during these tumultuous decades, that in 1933 she would become a widow; while prior to that, throughout the teens and twenties, Hale would rise to her glory, coming of age as wife, mother and artist as—

Safely nestled in a suburb of Boston, Lilian Westcott Hale chose to create insular images of white, upperclass, conservative families well-atuned to popular taste, for which national and international recognition, critical acclaim and financial remuneration would abound; catapulting her into a personally tenuous, position of professional renown, as her work not only hung alongside, but was indeed recognized as of one of the most well-respected of American painters. By well-established, consentual agreement with Boston patrons, Hale’s art maintained for their time, and all time, their status quo—elegantly. And yet, within the confines of her chosen iconography and her aesthetic Conservatism; Hale nevertheless subtly went about the business of contributing something as innovative as the Moderns, something totally unprecedented and uniquely new to the world of American art. Unknown before her advent of it, unchallenged by any other practitioner, unequalled during her artistic years, and unseen even in the many years since her death; Hale created an artistic technique, parent to a content and style, that even she may have been pleased to call: ‘American Linear Impressionism’.

*     *     *

It was during the howling season of snowy winds so intrinsically evocative of those cold, New England landscapes of Winter as the artist would come to draw so eloquently, and just barely three weeks before Christmas, when Lilian C. Westcott entered the world. On December 6, 1881*, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, as he had innumerable times before, obstetrician, Dr. Curtis Hall (1) pronounced the familiar words: It’s a girl!, by which, after five years of marriage, thirty-four year old Harriet L. Clarke Westcott and her husband, Edward Gardiner Westcott, knew that they had indeed become the proud parents of a lovely newborn daughter, who would come to be christened, Lilian.

A devoted wife and mother of two previous children, Mrs. E.G. Westcott, had been born the daughter of a hell-fire preaching, Presbyterian minister; and prior to her marriage, had graduated from the Female Seminary at Hornell, New York. Her husband, was employed as the Secretary and Treasurer for the Hartford branch of the Lee Arms Company of New York; and was, in an undetermined capacity, associated with the patenting of gunsights. (2) Although the age difference between them spanned a full sixteen years, the Westcotts had once again become parents; this, for the third time, as the newest arrival, Lilian, would be welcomed into a family which already included two sisters: The Westcott’s oldest daughter, Mary D. (called Dolly) and the middle sister, Anna Gardiner (called Nancy). Dolly died tragically of a ruptured appendix when she was barely nine years of age. Nancy (3), became a childhood devotee of the violin, (4) an artist, and would, years later, poignantly emerge as the namesake of Lilian’s own daughter, Nancy (Hale). Lilian Hale would name her own daughter after her older sister neither as a matter of coincidence nor family tradition; but rather reverentially as a genuine gesture of love arising from the wellspring her own tender feelings of gratitude remaining from her childhood. It was during Mrs. E. G. Westcott’s prostration, that the primary responsibility for the nurturing of Lilian fell to this surrogate mother, this middle sister, christened Anna, yet known, called, and loved, as Nancy.(5)

Dauntingly sparse, the existing information surrounding Lilian Westcott’s childhood presents some essential facts, impressions, and insights which confirm suspicions of an early interest in art, nurtured whenever possible by local art lessons.(6) In addition, reflective of the times, she spent the days of her youth acquiring the usual domestic skills, as of sewing and cooking, commonly associated with girlhood. Years later, these sewing skills would prove advantageous; when, as the tale is told, unable to find the right dress for a patron’s portrait (Green Taffeta), the artist simply sewed one.(7) An early exposure to sewing, might also be assumed to be highly compatible, equally, with Hale’s later fascination with textures, (her love of brocades, feathers, lace and period costumes); as well as, her unusual designer’s sense of fabricated color schemes; no less than, her trained eye’s meticulous coordination with superior fine motor skills characteristic of a dexterous hand, as would facilitate creation of her particularly delicate drawing technique.

If, with the death of her sister, Dolly, Hale’s childhood seemed predestined for gloom; then the tendency must surely have been severely exacerbated when in 1897 another sad event loomed, one which would doubtless, if not in an overtly conscious manner, nevertheless, shape the goals and personality of the young girl from Sigourney Street: (8) that event being, the unexpected death of her father. One fateful legacy inherent in that day were the economic distractions which became the sole burden of her widowed mother, who in order to support her family, was forced to engage borders, and sell piano lessons. For a sensitive introverted child, as was Lilian, this increasingly crowded and evolving homefront may well have spawned an additional unanticipated, less immediately tangible, inheritance. It may well have been the early source of what her own daughter would refer to as a dignified, fashionable, reserved, but consistently melancholy personality.

Still, in a more positive light, one may posit that it was in reaction to these dismal circumstances, that Hale formulated not only this basic trait of personality, but additional, functional others as well: deeply seated characteristics imminently germaine to her philosophical convictions, and relative not only to the life she did have, but the life she determined she would have. While, from among the anecdotes and interviews of friends and relatives, we learn that Hale was a tall, dignified woman with a Yankee reserve; she was also versatile, creative, economical in means, materials and money in both life and art, financially forward thinking, and practical with a common sense, black and white type of clarity of mind embellished by a genuine sense of humor.

Yet, perhaps more significant than the determination, frugality and commonsense wisdom implied by the work ethic implicated in the Puritanism necessarily associated with her childhood, is a clandestine, counterbalancing, sense—a simmering, unspoken reaction, a passion, welling beneath the surface; for inherent to the past-time of art and surely an artistic career, if nothing else, there is to be found a drugless narcotic as casts its spell; that being, the escapistly joyful freeing of the spirit from drudgery and care into the pensive realms of endless beauty, evocative of sentiments of dreamy reverie not at all unaligned to the spirit of the heavenly soul, as of a wingless bird taking flight across a beautiful meadow eternally ablossom in Spring.

That Hale’s first and possibly truest spiritual love was her passion for