Richard Hayley Lever (28 September 1876 – 6 December 1958) was an Australian-American painter, etcher, lecturer and art teacher. His work was part of the art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics and the 1932 Summer Olympics.[1]
Street Scene, ca 1910Harbor scene sold at auction for $159,625 in 2005Summer Sailboats, 1940Nantucket Yachting Season, Oil on board
Lever's maternal grandfather Richard Hayley, owner of Bowden Tannery, died in 1882,[4] and the subsequent inheritance was sufficient for Lever to finance a trip to England in 1899[5] to further his career in painting. He moved to St. Ives, a fishing port and artistic colony on the Cornish coast. The town's reputation as a centre for marine painting was largely due to Julius Olsson, who became a prominent British seascape painter.[6] In St. Ives, Lever shared a studio with Frederick Judd Waugh, and studied painting techniques under the Impressionists Olsson and Algernon Talmage. Lever also painted in the French port villages of Douarnenez and Concarneau, Brittany, directly across the English Channel from St. Ives.
In late 1904 Lever made a trip back to Adelaide, where his mother was dying of tuberculosis.[7] During his twelve-month stay he staged several exhibitions, painted seascapes and taught. In 1906, upon returning to Europe, he married Aida Smith Gale in St. Ives' Parish Church. In 1908, Lever did a series of paintings called Van Gogh's Hospital, Holland expressing the profound influence he felt from that artist.[citation needed]
From 1919 to 1931, Lever taught art classes at the Art Students League of New York where he maintained a Gloucester studio and often traveled to paint on Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. He offered this message to his students: "Art is the re-creation of mood in line, form and color. 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." Lever went to Pittsburgh in 1922 as an art juror for the Carnegie International exhibition.[8]
By 1930, Lever had moved to Caldwell, New Jersey, staying there until 1938, when he moved to Mount Vernon, New York. While living in New York, Lever painted marines and landscapes in New Jersey, New England, New York and the Canadian Maritimes. Throughout his life, he traveled and painted extensively, including Nova Scotia and Grand Manan Island in Canada, The Bahamas and Florida, while often returning to Europe. In 1933, Hayley was named Director of the Green Mountains summer art school at Smugglers Notch in Stowe, Vermont.[9] Lever also taught painting classes at the Forum School of Art in Bronxville, New York from 1934 to 1935.
In later life, Lever was inflicted with arthritis in his right hand, which prevented him from further travel and forced him to concentrate on still-life subjects instead. As his arthritis advanced, he taught himself to paint with his left hand. However, following the death of his wife Aida in 1949,[10] Lever was confined to his home, where he continued to paint from 1953 until his death.[citation needed]
Hayley Lever died on 6 December 1958 at his home in Mount Vernon, New York. News of his death surprised some: Lever had all but disappeared from public view over two decades earlier, despite once having been enormously popular and critically acclaimed. Even so, he had continued to paint in the intervening years to such a degree that colleagues and dealers alike were confounded by the cache of unsold, and largely unseen, paintings in his Mount Vernon barn.[11] Since his death, he has been recognized as one of the leaders of American Impressionism in the 20th century.[12]
Shadowland Magazine, November 1922. "Hayley Lever, Individualist (The artist who believes that man may draw inspiration from all sources, but that the only deadly sin is imitation)" by Holger Cahill. p. 11, 77
^"Family Notices". South Australian Register. Adelaide. 5 October 1875. p. 4. Retrieved 3 February 2015 – via National Library of Australia. Many reference works put his year of birth as 1876.
^"Family Notices". South Australian Register. Adelaide. 13 September 1882. p. 2 Supplement: Supplement to the South Australian Register. Retrieved 3 February 2015 – via National Library of Australia. His grandmother, Mrs. Hayley, died 27 April 1900.
