Watch this space!

L. Bernard Hall, The Artist (Septimus Power) in the Studio
c. 1924, oil on canvas, 76.2 x 61.5,
 private collection 

Why does anyone decide to write a book? This is a question I asked myself time and again during the years it took to bring my biography of L. Bernard Hall to completion. Achingly long hours spent in front of a computer without any real prospect of pecuniary reward surely suggest a disturbing level of naivety, if not an obsession verging on outright insanity.

In my case the trigger was a growing suspicion that Australian art history’s favourite bogeyman, L. Bernard Hall, may actually have been an innovative and influential, figure, whose contribution to Australia’s cultural development had never been properly evaluated. This proposition set my feet upon a path that could only end – at least satisfactorily – in the
making of the book that was released this month.  

                                                                                 

As I worked, I came to realise that Hall’s off-putting reputation reflected a campaign of denigration initiated in the years after his death. Ambitious men needed to cut down their predecessor in order to rise in his place. Disgruntled ex-students used him to ‘explain’ their own limitations. Historians looking for a convenient scapegoat to explain every perceived art-related deficiency of the early twentieth century continued the process.

That was bad enough. More surprising was the readiness of almost every critic of later years to accept the mythology that resulted – seemingly without question.  It had not only been cited many times but, regrettably, embroidered and expanded, much like the children’s game where a message passed from mouth to mouth evolves with every repetition. For a self-confessed history buff, this was a pretty confronting situation. And so the project – to find the man the mythology had obliterated and the art world had surely forgotten – was born.

The completion of the book was a personal triumph. Even so, its necessarily restricted length meant that many stories were left untold, many people were not introduced and a great many paintings are still to be added to the catalogue. If you are interested, please read the book, but also watch this space for what can only be a continuing saga.

Do you know this picture?

There are many of Hall's pictures yet to be located. This is just one. Originally titled The Bear Skin, or 

Beauty and the Beast, it was sold in 1910 to an American businessman.On his death, his wife sold his collection before returning to the,USA, but this painting was not listed in the catalogue. Perhaps she took it with her, but it may also have been sold privately. Can you help?