PHILIP L. HALE

Painter, teacher, and writer Philip Leslie Hale was born in Boston in 1865, the son of Rev. Edward Everett Hale. He studied painting with many important American artists, beginning with his sister Ellen Day Hale, and continuing with Edmund Tarbell, William Merritt Chase, Julian Alden Weir and Kenyon Cox. At the Académie Julian in Paris, he studied with Lefebvre, Boulanger, Benjamin-Constant, and Doucet. During his time in France, he summered in Giverny and also penned a column called “Letter from Paris” for Arcadia Magazine. Back in Boston, he became known as one of the leaders of the “Boston School” of artists. He was an art critic for both the Boston Herald and the Boston Evening Transcript. He taught at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School for thirty years and at Boston University late in his life. Ideologically, he was a devoted advocate of Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer, and wrote a book about that artist in 1913. He also defended the Tarbellites and the Boston tradition. Hale exhibited widely throughout his career, at places such as the Boston Art Club, Paris Salon and National Academy. He died in 1931. Today, his work can be seen at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Cooper-Hewitt Museum, Delaware Art Museum, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the Philadelphia Art Club.