CHRYSANTHEMUMS IN A VASE
oil on canvasboard
23 x 19cm; 9 x 7 1/2in
38 x 34cm; 15 x 13 1/2in (framed)

Raised in Australia, Richard Hayley Lever acquired a sizeable inheritance on the death of his grandfather and travelled to Paris in 1894. There he attended the studio of René-Francois-Xavier Prinet, but was was more naturally inclined towards the plein air techniques of Monet and Pissarro. From France he moved to Cornwall in 1902 to join the St Ives School of Marine and Landscape Painting established by Julius Olsson and Louis Munro Grier. There, Ernest Lawson, a member of the avant-garde group of American Modern painters The Eight, invited Hayley-Lever to join Lawson’s endeavour to establish an American Impressionist movement. Persuaded that his work would be better suited to the big bold landscapes and audience of the United States, the artist moved to New York in 1912. He taught at the Art Students League in New York and in 1914 won the Carnegie Foundation Prize. In 1924 he was commissioned to paint the presidential yacht for Calvin Coolidge, the same year that he was granted US citizenship.