Bernard Hall always had close ties with Adelaide, and was a
regular exhibitor at its annual Federal Art Exhibition. His connection with the
city was cemented by the friendship of two influential men, Harry Pelling Gill,
the honorary curator of the Adelaide Gallery from 1892 until 1907, and the
eminent architect and connoisseur, Walter Hervey Bagot, who did his best to
ensure that Hall’s connection with the Gallery remained strong in later years.
The Art Gallery of South Australia holds three of Bernard
Hall’s pictures. As is the case with
other state galleries, you will probably have to ask if you want to see them
all, although if you are lucky you may find an early still life and a late nude
on display in the Elder wing.
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| The Adelaide Advertiser, Thursday 6 November 1902 |
The 'picture in question', After
Dinner, was acquired in 1902 from the Federal Art Exhibition. An
accomplished study in the Dutch manner, it provides a captivating hint of the
principles underlying the Edwardian art of entertaining. In 1916, in a lecture
given at the Adelaide Gallery, Hall said that ‘Art is no hot-house plant
flourishing only in art galleries and museums, or art schools and studios. Art
permeates the whole field of human activities and is of a piece with life’. If you can find time for a leisurely encounter
with After Dinner, you may reach a better understanding of the man and his philosophy.
In 1905, the Gallery purchased another of Hall’s paintings, also from the Federal Exhibition. The
Gardener’s Workshop has a more complex history; one that creates its own problems for the critic.
With limited time to explore new subjects, Hall had begun to rework several
that had already proven popular, sometimes from sketches and photographs, but
also from paintings he had chosen to retain for this purpose. His first ‘Workshop’ or ‘Toolshed’ was one of
these, painted at Nazeing Hall in Essex before he left England. This version
remained in his possession until 1935 at which time the artist and Hall's ex-student, A. M
E. Bale purchased it for her own collection.
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| Left: L. Bernard Hall, The Gardener's Workshop, c. 1890, Above: Label on reverse. The current whereabouts of this picture are unknown. |
Hall was
to continue painting 'duplicates' throughout his life, justifying the exercise in later
years by noting that one such [The Cheese Kitchen, first painted in
Bavaria] is a precious little subject just suited – so I think – to my hand and
treatment and I have attained ... facility in rendering its detail that
otherwise had not been possible. There is absolutely nothing to prevent an
artist doing this – varying or bettering his results – I suppose I have done so
in about half a dozen cases out of my many pictures. He added that ‘From the
Old Masters down to the present time [reworking a theme] has continually been
done’, citing several pictures in the Melbourne Gallery to support his claim.
And, despite being labeled duplicates, the differences arising from ‘varying or
bettering’ rendered each version distinctive, ensuring a ready and appreciative
market.
The third Hall painting to be found in
Adelaide is a large scale nude, The Model and the
Mirror, painted in the late 1920s, at which time the artist was approaching
his seventieth birthday. I find this one particularly interesting in that it
illustrates, perhaps more clearly than any other, the development of Hall’s
style over the years. The most cursory comparison of The Model and the Mirror and The Sleeping Beauty/A Colour Medley from
around 1910 (find it in my June posting) should show you what I mean.
Many years later, Sybil Craig wrote about
the girl who posed for The Model and the
Mirror. ‘Miss D--- was of Irish extraction and was very lonely out here.
She was Mr Hall’s model and we were lucky to get her. She had rich red hair,
lovely skin and large blue eyes. I loved the quality of her skin and her
charming profile.’ Somehow this description adds poignancy (at least for me) to the picture in Adelaide
If you can’t make Miss D’s acquaintance in person, you will
find the picture in my book and on the Gallery’s website: http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/agsa/home/Collection/detail.jsp?ecatKey=4261
Do you know this painting?
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| L. Bernard Hall, study for The Model and the Mirror |
Like many of his contemporaries, Hall
often worked on several studies or oil sketches before he was satisfied with the way a concept was developing. This is one of the studies that paved the way for the final Model and the Mirror, and gives some
idea of the way the artist experimented with furnishings and accessories in the
early stages of his work. In the
finished picture, the foreground is less cluttered, while the background has
been changed to identify the setting as Hall's studio.
There is some evidence that this picture,
which would have been much smaller than the Adelaide Gallery’s Model and is only known from the photograph above, was sold
in the years after the artist’s death. If you know where it is now I would love to
hear from you.
