The Life of the Artist
Biography
Andrew Adelbert Hall
September 27, 1916 to November 7, 2010
Andrew Adelbert Hall (Andy A. Hall) was born in Englewood, New Jersey on September 17, 1916, and raised in New Rochelle, New York. He divided his youth between sketching, painting, and playing the clarinet and saxophone. He briefly joined and toured with a Big Band in his late teens but discovered his true passion for visual art and, in his early 20s, started serious exploration and study by moving to Greenwich Village in New York City and becoming part of the New York School of Art. Mr. Hall studied with Hans Hoffman at the Art Students League and at the National Academy of Design for a total of five years. The study of classic form and the encouragement and support he received allowed him to explore and develop his individual style during those years. He later received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Long Island University and his Masters in Art Education from the University of Minnesota.
The artist exhibited extensively in New York City and Southampton, NY, including the Artist’s Gallery, the Connoisseur’s Gallery, the Perri-Renneth Gallery, the Parrish Museum, Southampton College, as well as at the Oxford Gallery in Rochester, NY. He moved to England for four years and exhibited at Redbourn Studio and Gallery, at the Drian Gallery in London, and at the Hertfordshire College of Art in Hatfield. While living in England, Mr. Hall designed and had a machinist build his etching presses out of steel which he sold to local British printmakers. His prints were exhibited and sold as well as his paintings.
Mr. Hall returned to the US—relocating to Hopewell, New Jersey—and joined the Hunterdon Art Association and the Trenton Artist Workshop Association (TAWA) exhibiting at galleries in both Lambertville and Trenton, NJ. He also participated in the Star Arts Retreat (located on Star Island, off the coast of New Hampshire) annually to share with other artists of multiple venues including writers, poets, visual artists, actors, and dancers. The artist expanded into merging visual art with writing books, poems, and publishing his book, Nude in the City. He also both lectured and taught art at numerous colleges, schools, and universities in the US and in England. Mr. Hall continued to exhibit extensively in New York, New Jersey, and Minnesota throughout his career.
The artist described the ABCs of his paintings as follows:
A. “My pictures are not realistic or surrealistic. They are like poems, beyond realism, but not surrealism. The purpose of painting is not to be realistic but to find beauty."
B. “I am careful about space. My backgrounds have worked out relationships to the objects in my paintings, or in painterly terms, are balanced between positive and negative spaces. I activate all spaces.”
C. “The most noteworthy painters are usually those who have the respect and admiration of other painters. The critical world of art must eventually bend to this kind of pressure therefore I strive to be a painter’s painter.”
Mr. Hall continued sketching, painting, playing saxophone, and writing until his passing on November 7, 2010.