George Henry Hall

George Henry Hall (1825–1913) was an American still-life and landscape artist. He studied art in Düsseldorf and Paris and he worked and lived in New York City, the Catskills of New York and in Europe. His works are in museum collections in the United States and Europe. Over the course of his career he sold 1,659 paintings.

Early life George Henry Hall was born on September 21, 1825, in Boston, Massachusetts, and raised in Manchester, New Hampshire. #tag:ref|An American Art News obituary and the Smithsonian says he was born in Boston, Massachusetts, Arthur Adams, author of The Catskills: An Illustrated Historical Guide with Gazetteer, calls Hall a "native of New Hampshire". Dearinger notes that Hall said that he was born in Boston and raised in New Hampshire.

Hall attended public schools

His work was shown at the National Academy of Art first in 1853. His works included historic scenes, genre paintings and still lives. Hall — along with Calvert Vaux, Frederic Edwin Church, Jervis McEntee, Eastman Johnson and Sanford Robinson Gifford — were friends and members of the Century Association in New York City, where they sang, laughed, drank and smoked. They hoped that proficient artists would be valued as keenly as successful men of business. Vaux had owned one of Hall's paintings.

Eleven people were killed on July 4, 1857, in the Dead Rabbits Riot, a battle between the Bowery Boys and a gang called the Dead Rabbits in Manhattan's worst slums located on the Lower East Side of the city. Hall made a picture, A Dead Rabbit (Study of the Nude, or Study of an Irishman), depicting a bare-chested man leaning up against a stone wall and clenching a brick in his right hand. #tag:ref|It was exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1942, 1979 and 1989.

He had an art studio in Rome during many winters. It was there that Hall met artist Jennie Augusta Brownscombe; They became companions and he was her mentor. Between 1885 and 1896 they spent the winters in Rome. In the summers they shared a studio in Palenville in the New York Catskill Mountains from about 1908 until Hall died in 1913.

The Royal Shakespeare Company has a life-size painting that he made of William Shakespeare. including the painting Danaë and the Golden Shower by John Smibert. Its location was unknown as of 1969. By 1912 she had donated a self-portrait made by George Henry Hall and a watercolor painting made by Hall of a Pompeiian fresco, to the Brooklyn Museum of Art. She also donated a George Henry Hall sketchbook to the museum.

Collections His works are in the following collections: Brooklyn Museum of Art St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, St. Johnsbury, Vermont Smithsonian American Art Museum

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