Clifford Hall, ROI, NS, (24 January 1904 – 25 December 1973)[1] was a British painter of street scenes and bohemian life. One of his more recognizable post-war phases was that of people covered to various degrees by a towel or blanket. Some have their faces turned from the viewer or hidden.[2][3]
Early life and career
Clifford Eric Martin Hall was born in Wandsworth, London and spent his youth in Richmond, at Sheen Avenue, then in Mount Arras Road.[2] He was educated first at Elm Tree House School, then Richmond Hill School from 1914, followed by King's College School, Wimbledon. In the 1920s he studied at Richmond Art School under Charles Wheeler and at Putney Art School under Stanley Anderson. From 1925 to 1927 he studied at the Royal Academy schools where he won a Landseer Scholarship and started accepting portrait commissions, which, together, funded his studies and lodgings in Twickenham. He was influenced by Charles Sims and Walter Sickert. From 1928 he lived in Paris, where he shared a studio in Malakoff with Edwin John, son of Augustus John.[3] Through John he was introduced to the Montparnasse district. He studied under Andre Lhote.[1]
Return to England
Hall returned to England in the 1930s where he painted local scenes in Soho and elsewhere. From 1940 he painted Quentin Crisp three times, but the current whereabouts of two of these works is unknown.[4] He joined an ARP stretcher party[5] near Lots Road, Chelsea, during the Second World War and made independent submissions to the War Artists Advisory Committee.[1] In May 1941, an exhibition of Clifford Hall's war drawings, entitled “Bombs On Chelsea”, was held at the Leger Gallery in Old Bond Street, London, W1. Some of his drawings from that period depicting the effects of air raids are in the Imperial War Museum collection. His work was also part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1948 Summer Olympics.[6]
Hall's most distinctive work is from his later life when from the mid-1960s he started to paint portraits of women swathed in towels or other fabric almost from head to toe with the face hidden.[2][3] These works echoed Hall's many earlier works in which women were shown head down, brushing their hair so that the hair obscured the face, or facing away from the spectator, which he had previously interspersed with conventional full face portraits.[8]
The contents of Hall's studio were sold post-mortem in 1982 by Christie's in London and his paintings were thereby fairly widely distributed. They may be found in many British institutional collections, some foreign collections, and often appear at auction.[1]
