Eight Paintings by Richard Hayley Lever (lots 496-503)

Introduction
Art is the re-creation of mood in line, form and colour. 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.(Richard Hayley Lever)

Hayley Lever’s painting, rich with arresting colour and atmospheric light, speak to the artist’s dedication to capturing the sensational and spontaneous quality of nature. Australian-born, Hayley-Lever acquired a sizeable inheritance following his grandfather’s death and travelled to Europe in 1894, where he studied under the painter Rene-Francois-Xavier Prinet in Paris. Although Prinet’s teaching focused on the human figure, the young Hayley Lever was inspired instead by the plein air landscapes of Monet and Pissarro which captured the harmonious relationship between contemporary life and the natural world and nautical subjects. From Paris, he moved to Cornwall to join the St Ives School of Marine and Landscape Painting, established by Julius Olsson and Louis Munro Grier in 1902. In 1908, he discovered the work of Van Gogh during a trip to the Netherlands which encouraged him to use more striking colour combinations and dissolve form with thick and energetic impasto.

On meeting Ernest Lawson, then a part of the avant-garde group of American Modern painters ‘The Eight’, Hayley-Lever was invited 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. By 1924, he had obtained American citizenship, had won the Carnegie Foundation Prize (in 1914), was teaching at the Art Students League of New York and had been recognised for his marine painting when commissioned to paint the presidential yacht for Calvin Coolidge.

During his time in America, Hayley Lever continued to travel through the East Coast, Canada, Europe and Australia and eventually settled in Mount Vernon, New York.

Whether capturing contemporary scenes of New York quotidian or the rich summer light of rural New England, Hayley-Lever's paintings are invigorated with memory and a distinct sense of time and place. With the eyes of an outsider – Australian-born, St Ives trained and continentally inspired – Hayley Lever left his mark as one of the luminaries of 20th century American Impressionism.

RICHARD HAYLEY LEVER (AMERICAN 1876-1958)
GLOUCESTER FISHING BOAT
signed Hayley Lever lower right
oil on canvas laid on board
24 x 29.5cm; 9 1/2 x 11 3/4in
41.5 x 45.5cm; 16 1/2 x 18in (framed)

Painted circa 1925.

Provenance
Bernard Black Gallery, New York

Exhibited
New York, Bernard Black Gallery, Hayley Lever: Selected Works, 1900-1936, no. 42, illustrated in the catalogue