William Matthew Hale

William Matthew Hale is a Victorian Artist, he produced hundreds of paintings in his time, many are held in museums in the UK and overseas.

Matthew William Hale was the son of a clergyman, born on 27th August 1837 in Bristol, where he died on 7th March 1929. He was educated at Rugby and Balliol College Oxford where he studied law. He graduated and was called to the bar at Lincolns Field Inn, immediately though, he decided to become an artist. This worried his father who wrote to James Duffield Harding (1798-1863), the artist and renowned art teacher, asking if he would meet his son, view his work and advise if he could make a living as an artist, which Harding did and agreed to give Hale lessons. Hale left his position as a lawyer and started his career as an artist in 1863. He now considered himself a professional artist and he taught drawing in London. He returned to Bristol and began producing and selling watercolours around 1865. He was a successful artist and sold works consistently: his notebooks record the watercolours he sold to whom and at what price. Hale’s father died in 1868 and he inherited a substantial sum of money and probably was able to live independently from then on. He married in 1869 and moved to a very large house in Stoke Bishop. None of his four offspring appear to have had children themselves.

Press clippings in the BRO records show that Hale had many favourable reviews and was well known. He was elected as an associate to the Watercolour Society in 1871 and a full member in 1881; his election to the RWA was in 1904. He was very prolific in his output and regularly entered both RWA and RWS exhibitions and regularly sold works. At the RWS centenary dinner in 1904, Hale was seated on the top table, only six places from the president, Lawrence Alma-Tadema - suggesting he was highly considered.

Hale was clearly influenced by Harding, but also by Ruskin. He also has a style influenced by Turner. In correspondence with Harding he expresses concern about Pre-Raphaelitism and states he does not intend to adopt that style. Like Turner, he travelled very widely around Britain and the rest of Europe sourcing information for his paintings. On many of these trips he took his whole family with him for weeks and months at a time. His paintings clearly reflect these trips in landscape paintings, showing views all over Europe. Hale corresponded with other artists, for example, Edward Robert Hughes (1851-1914) who was closely associated with Pre-Raphaelitism, a school that Hale specifically rejected as evidenced by his letters.

Hale’s main interest was landscapes and the atmospheric effects of light and weather. His sketchbooks show considerable studies of clouds and various lighting effects - in particular the effects of dawn and dusk. His oils later in life show a significant change to marine painting: in American auction houses he is frequently referred to as a ‘marine painter’. He also produced many local views around Bristol and Bath and his work provides valuable topographical and historical information. He was selling his work up to 1928; just before the year he died aged 92. His work seems undervalued today although it frequently appears in European and American auctions.

Bristol Record Office, Hale Bequest BRO 14182

References

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