Biography from Spanierman Gallery:
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HAYLEY LEVER (1876-1958)
Hayley Lever’s exceptional career path took him from the shores of his native Australia to those of England, and then the United States. Described as an artist of “individuality,” he refused to ally himself with any particular style or movement; rather, guided by his belief that “art is the re-creation of mood in line, form and color,” he incorporated the precepts of Realism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism and Expressionism into his art, applying those strategies in accordance with the emotion and aesthetic affect he wished to convey. In America, where he achieved his greatest acclaim, he was lauded by critics such as Edgar Holger Cahill, who declared:
in all his painting, whether it is of boats dancing on the waters of the Cornish coast, the ferry bridges and boats and streets of Gloucester, Massachusetts, the steaming asphalt highways of New York City, or the gently upheaving Catskills about Woodstock, it is always Lever who addresses us.
Lever was born on September 28th 1876 in Bowden Tannery, a suburb of Adelaide, Australia. The son of Albion W. Lever and his wife, Catherine (Hayley) Lever, he was christened Richard, but as a professional artist he used his second and last names only.
Lever attended Adelaide’s Prince Alfred College from 1883 to 1891, during which time he received drawing lessons from the marine painter, James Ashton. Upon graduating, he attended Ashton’s Academy of Arts (1891-93) and spent his free time painting and sketching in the local countryside. Around 1894, Lever received an inheritance that allowed him to travel to London to study art. Details about his training in England remain scarce, but it is known that he spent part of his time visiting the city’s museums and commercial galleries, where he had the opportunity to familiarize himself with the art of both the past and present. During this period, Lever also spent two winters studying figure painting in Paris, probably with René-François-Xavier Prinet.
A turning point in Lever’s artistic evolution occurred around 1899, when, at Ashton’s recommendation, he settled in St. Ives, an ancient fishing port and art colony on England’s Cornish seacoast. There, Lever studied outdoor painting techniques under the British Impressionists Julius Olsson and Algernon Talmage. Working out of a studio located on the top floor of a local art gallery, he painted views of the town and harbor, as well as scenes of Devon, interpreting the maritime environment with soft, Whistlerian brushwork and a subdued tonal palette. In keeping with the aesthetic proclivities of St. Ives painters at that time, he became especially interested in conveying evening effects, going on to paint atmospheric moonlight scenes in a subtle tonal Impressionist manner. During 1904-05, Lever made a six-month trip back to Adelaide, where he painted seascapes and did some teaching. A year later he married Aida Smith Gale in St. Ives’ Parish Church.
During his years in Cornwall, Lever made painting excursions to coastal locales in France, such as Dieppe, Honfleur and Concarneau. He made his debut at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1904, exhibiting an oil entitled Eventide, St. Ives Harbour. He also contributed paintings to shows at the St. Ives Art Club, the New English Art Club, the Royal West of England Academy, and the Society of Royal British Artists, as well as exhibitions in Paris, Nice, and Venice.
In 1908, while traveling on the Continent, Lever saw the work of the Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh, an event that marked a turning point in his artistic evolution. Influenced by the Dutchman’s expressive style, he painted a series of canvases entitled Van Gogh’s Hospital, Holland and began incorporating the structural concerns and the bold colorism of Post-Impressionism into his work. By 1910, he was interpreting the boats, docks, and houses of St. Ives in a more progressive style characterized by the use of flat, two-dimensional shapes, linear patterning, and decorative designs.
Lever made his American debut in 1910, when he exhibited his Port of St. Ives, Cornwall, at the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh by special invitation. American critics were especially responsive to his St. Ives pictures, which they found exotic, distinctive, and pleasing to the eye; noting his ability to evoke the spirit of place, the aforementioned Cahill declared that “of the many painters who have painted St. Ives, no one has made the place so peculiarly his own as Hayley Lever.” The influential collector, Duncan Phillips, was also drawn to Lever’s work, calling him a “clever Impressionist and a vigorous painter” with a strong “zest for design.” In 1912, at the suggestion of several American artists he had met in St. Ives--such as Gardner Symons and possibly Ernest Lawson--Lever traveled to New York and turned his attention to depicting he streets, parks and waterfront of Manhattan, capturing the vibrant life of his new surroundings in both oils and works on paper.
In 1913, encouraged by the positive reception to his St Ives subjects, Lever decided to remain permanently in the United States. He went on to establish a major reputation in national art circles, winning awards and prizes at the annuals of the National Academy of Design, the National Arts Club, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He also had numerous one-man shows at museums, including exhibitions at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester (1914), the Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts (1914) and the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy (1920). In 1915--the year his St. Ives Fishing Boats received a gold medal at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco--Lever joined the stable of artists represented by the prestigious Macbeth Gallery in New York, where he would exhibit his work for over two decades. Four years later he became a teacher at the Art Students League of New York, remaining on its faculty until 1931.
In 1915--seeking an American equivalent of St. Ives--Lever made his first visit to Gloucester, the picturesque fishing town on Massachusetts’ Cape Ann peninsula, where he painted harbor scenes and taught painting and sketching classes. He would continue to make summer excursions there, and to other littoral locales in Massachusetts, such as Rockport, Marblehead and Nantucket, until the early 1930s. By that point, Lever’s penchant for depicting boats and the sea had become legendary; indeed, in 1924, he was commissioned to paint a portrait of the presidential yacht, “Mayflower,” which was subsequently presented to President Coolidge in the Cabinet Room of the White House.
In the summer of 1927, Lever traveled to Europe, visiting Paris and the Normandy and Brittany regions of France, in addition to making a trip back to St. Ives. Around 1930, he moved to Caldwell, New Jersey, although he continued to maintain a New York studio and teach Saturday art classes. In the ensuing years, Lever, like many artists of his milieu, experienced the economic woes of the Depression. Although he continued to win recognition in the national annuals, including the National Academy’s of Design’s Edwin Palmer Memorial Prize (1936, 1938), sales of his work were minimal due to the sluggish art market. He subsequently supplemented his income by teaching, serving as director of the Art Students League’s Green Mountain Summer Art School in Stowe, Vermont in 1933 and teaching painting classes at the Forum School of Art in Bronxville, New York during 1934-35. In 1938, after losing his home in Caldwell, he moved to Mount Vernon, New York, where he became the director of the Studio Art Club. Consistent with his temperamental personality and the personal problems that plagued him later in life, his work took on more expressionistic overtones as he replaced the graceful lines and controlled touch of the previous years with agitated brushwork and an electric palette, often injecting strong light-dark contrasts into his paintings to create powerful visual statements. Indeed, some of Lever’s later paintings go beyond mere representation into the realm of fantasy and the symbolic.
In 1940, Lever traveled to Nova Scotia and Grand Manan Island, Canada, but his extended trips to coastal New England had virtually ceased. He continued to paint scenes of industrial and maritime life in New York, New Jersey and Long Island; however, as the years went by he turned increasingly to still-life subjects, especially when debilitating arthritis prevented further travel. As his illness progressed, Lever even learned to paint with his left hand.
Lever was a member of the most prestigious art organizations of his day, notably, the National Academy of Design (N.A., 1933) and the National Arts Club (Artist Life Member, 1913). As well as exhibiting his work at the Macbeth Gallery, his commercial affiliations included the Daniel Gallery, Milch Galleries, and the Clayton-Liberatore Gallery, all in New York.
In 1954, Lever was admitted into Crestview Hall, a nursing home in Mount Vernon. He died at Mount Vernon Hospital on December 6th 1958, leaving behind a legacy of oils, watercolors, drawings and etchings that reflect his maxim that
It’s not what an artist paints—it’s how he paints it. Paintings may be abstract or realistic—it doesn’t matter. The greatest art of all is great enough to cover any method . . . If there’s enthusiasm in you, nothing on earth stops you. Paining is a joyful agony—a labor of love.
Examples of Lever’s work can be found in collections throughout the United States, including the Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; the Dallas Museum of Art; the Flint Institute of Arts, Michigan; the Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey; the Brooklyn Museum of Art; the Nantucket Historical Association, Massachusetts; the New Britain Museum of Art, Connecticut; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the National Academy of Design, New York; National Arts Club, New York; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; the University of Rochester, Memorial Art Gallery, New York; and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
CL
© The essay herein is the property of Spanierman Gallery, LLC and is copyrighted by Spanierman Gallery, LLC, and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from Spanierman Gallery, LLC, nor shown or communicated to anyone without due credit being given to Spanierman Gallery, LLC.
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Biography from Pierce Galleries, Inc.:
| Hayley Lever (American, 1876-1958)
(Richard) Hayley Lever was a painter, etcher, lecturer and art instructor who was born in Adelaide, Australia on September 18, 1876.
He studied at the Prince Alfred Cultural Institute in Adelaide, the N.Y.C. Art Students League and in Paris and in London.
He was a member of the American Painters and Etchers, National Arts Club, California Academy of Fine Arts, Royal British Academy (London), Associate (1925) and Full Academician (1933) at the National Academy (NYC), the royal Institute of Oil Painters (London), the Royal West of England Academy; the Contemporaries and the New Society of Artists.
Lever won numerous gold and silver medals for artistic achievement at the National Academy, Penn. Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia Watercolor Club, Pan-Pacific Exposition (1915), the Montclair Art Assoc., and elsewhere.
His work is represented in the White House; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Wash., DC; Dallas Art Museum; Des Moines Art Museum; Fort Worth Museum of Art; L.A. County Museum of Art; Telfair Academy; National Arts Club; National Academy of Design; Memphis Art Museum; Australia Art Museum; Cincinnati Art Museum and more.
Lever died in Mount Vernon, New York on December 6, 1958 recognized for his impressionistic views of boats in harbors and at sea. |
Biography from Kingston Bay Gallery:
| Richard Hayley Lever was born in Adelaide, Australia in 1876. He demonstrated a talent for art at an early age and devoted his attention to learning the craft during his school days. He was encouraged by his grandfather, owner of a tannery business, who left him a modest inheritance when he died in a tragic accident in 1899. This enabled Lever, who by this time had developed his skills as a painter, to realize his dream of going to Europe, where he hoped to establish a reputation without which he would not be able to receive recognition and become successful in Australia.
Lever's paintings and drawings are in numerous collections throughout the United States, Europe and Australia, including the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Phillips Memorial Gallery in Washington, D.C. and the Sydney Art Gallery, Australia. |
Biography from William A. Karges Fine Art - Beverly Hills:
| Hayley Lever was born in Adelaide, Australia, and educated in London after showing early promise in Art. His works are an amalgam of Impressionist and Fauvist styles. Often quite bold, Lever is best known for his richly expressive coastal and harbor scenes.
Lever emigrated to New York in 1911, encouraged by his American friend, Ernest Lawson. Lever was quickly welcomed by the New York critics, and he was soon one of the most widely exhibited artists in that city. He was a one-time Director of the Studio Art Club in Mount Vernon, New York, and an instructor at the Art Students League from 1919-1931. |
Biography from AskART:
| Born in Adelaide, Australia, Hayley Lever was known for his town-shore landscapes and still-life painting in a style that combined impressionism with vivid colors and strong lines of realism---post impressionism. In his use of color, he was deeply influenced by Vincent Van Gogh. He freely explored numerous styles based on impressionism but was never locked into any particular style.
He showed early art talent and traveled to England in 1893. He studied art in London and then painted at an artists' colony in Cornwall on the seacoast of St. Ives where he began his seacoast paintings. He received much attention in Europe for these works. In 1908, he did a series of paintings called "Van Gogh's Hospital, Holland" expressing the profound influence he felt of that artist.
Lever came to America in 1911, encouraged by American artist Ernest Lawson whom he knew in France, and was soon counted among the most widely exhibited artists in New York City. Many of his scenes were of Manhattan. He had a summer studio in Gloucester, Massachusetts and from 1919 to 1931 taught at the Art Students League in New York City. He also became Director of the Studio Art Club in Mount Vernon, New York.
Lever imparted to his students the following message: "Art is the re-creation of mood in line, form and color. If I were confined to my own back yard for the rest of my life, I'd still have more pictures in my mind than I would have time to paint. Art is nothing but having a good time" (Comenos Fine Art).
He died in Mount Vernon, New York in 1958, having suffered ill health the last few years of his life.
He received many awards and critical acclaim and his works were purchased by major American museums, such as New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and Washington's Phillips Collection and Corcoran Museum.
Source:
Michael David Zellman, "Three Hundred Years of American Art"
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