The above painting by Australian-American painter Richard Hayley Lever, is a rich and lyrical landscape entitled verso "Autumn".  When purchased, we knew only that it had come from Lever's estate to New York's Kennedy Galleries, who handled much of the Lever estate.  It went thence to a corporate collection.  But we did not know when it was painted - or where.  After purchasing "Autumn", quite by accident, I happened upon the watercolor below, with the same Kennedy Galleries label, titled and dated "Marblehead Pool, 1925".  The watercolor is obviously of the same setting from a different vantage point, and most likely a study in preparation for this outstanding oil.

"Autumn", as said, is quite lyrical for Lever's larger works.  While many of smaller Lever's works are free and playful, some of the larger ones often become somewhat more structured and linear. In "Autumn", the branches' curved lines dominate the structure, rather than the straight lines he often favored - lending a quiet grace as opposed to angularity. With the oil paints, Lever mixed Damar Varnish, enabling each single brushstroke to build a dimensional layer of paint, providing not only linear motion to the stokes and what they depicted, but also a hint of sculpture  This same technique is used on Lever's painting, The Port of St. Ives, Cornwall, chosen by Carol Lowrey for the cover of her monolith Hayley Lever.  She describes this technique as applying "his pigment in a dense impasto to produce a crisp, tactile surface".  With this tactile surface, he combined a myriad of greens - olive to cobalt and viridian - played against earth tones, and complemented with triangles of  vibrant blue to the sky - all mirrored in the pool. The entire composition is unusual for Lever and extremely successful - so successful that Ashcan School and Robert Henri curator Valerie Leeds asked if I would like for her to write an essay on it. Ms. Leeds' essay is included along with both the watercolor and the oil "Autumn". 

The watercolor on paper (a link below) entitled "Marblehead Pool, 1925", depicts the same setting as "Autumn", but from a different vantage point.  The handling of the setting is similar, with the water reflections and sparing use of blue in the water.  If you look closely, you can see the change of vantage point from this image, to the artist's position in "Autumn" - across the pond, to the left of the two large trees, looking across to the small row of sketched trees and road on the right in this watercolor. 

It is an extreme pleasure to offer both of these paintings at the same time.

Together, they show not only the thought process of the artist,

but one of the better fully developed oil paintings available by Hayley Lever.

Stretcher size: 25” x 30”

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#6071

LEVER, Richard Hayley (1876-1958)

Birth place: Adelaide, South Australia

Death place: Mt. Vernon, NY

Addresses: NYC; Mt. Vernon, NY

Profession: Painter

Studied: Prince Alfred Club, Adelaide; Art Students League; Paris; London.

Exhibited: Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Annual;, 1913-32, 1940 (medal, 1917; gold medal, 1926);

Corcoran Gallery biennials, 1914-41 (12 times); National Arts Club  1914-15 (prizes); Pan-Pacific Expo,

1915; National Academy of Design, 1914, 1936, 1938 (prizes); NAC, 1914-16, 1922, 1940;

Philadelphia Watercolor Club, 1918 (prize); Sesqui-Centennial Expo, Philadelphia, 1926 (prize); Montclair

 Art Academy, 1930 (prize); New Rochelle Art Academy, 1941 (prize); Art Institute of Chicago; Society

of Independent Artists, 1920; Salons of America , 1934; Whitney Museum of American Art, 1922-46;

Newark Art Club, 1936 (prize); Westchester Arts & Crafts, 1945 (prize); Macbeth, Rehn,

Ferargil, Daniels, French & Co.,

Clayton, & other NYC galleries.

Member: National Academy of Design; American Painters & Engravers; National Arts Club;

Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts; Royal British Artists, London; Associate National Academy, 1925;

National Academician, 1933; Royal Institute of Oil Painters, London;

Royal West of England Academy; Contemporary; New

Society Artists; Woodstock Art Association

Work: Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Brooklyn Museum; Montclair

Art Museum; Boston Museum of Art; Corcoran Gallery of Art; White House, Washington, DC; Ft.

Worth Museum of Art; Dallas Museum of Fine Art; Los Angeles Museum of Art; Telfair Academy; Detroit

Institute of Art; Des Moines Art Museum; Woodstock Art Association; University Nebraska;

Phillips Memorial Gallery; Duquesne Club, Pittsburgh; National Arts Club;

Adelaide (So. Australia) Art Museum; Sydney (Australia) Art Museum; Whitney Museum of American Art;

Syracuse Museum FA; Antioch College; City Art Museum

of St. Louis; Memphis Art Museum; Springville (Utah) Art Academy; Perth Amboy (NJ) Public Library;

Little Rock Art Museum; Salt Lake City University Museum; Lincoln (NE) University

Comments: Best known as a Post-Impressionist of marine scenes, he was active in St. Ives, England,

beginning c.1895. In 1911, Ernest Lawson persuaded him to emigrate to the U.S.

After the Depression forced him to give up his home in Caldwell, NJ, he became director of the

Studio Art Club, in Mt. Vernon, NY. He spent his summers at Gloucester, MA, for twenty years.

In addition to Caldwell, NJ, he painted in Manasquan (NJ), Woodstock (NY),

 Nantucket, Vermont, and Monhegan Island (ME). In later years his palette became more vibrant.

Signature note: His signature was typically bold and slashing during the 1910s-20s,

while his later signatures have fewer flourishes.

Sources: WW53; WW47; Curtis, Curtis, and Lieberman, 32, 184; Woodstock AA; Falk, Exh. Record Series.

This biography is drawn from “Who Was Who in American Art” , the reference book on the cultural life in the United States.

Addison Gallery of American Art

Art Gallery of South Australia

Butler Institute of American Art

Cheekwood Museum of Art & Botanical Garden

Colby College Museum of Art

Corcoran Gallery of Art

Everson Museum Of Art

Flint Museum of Art

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, MH De Young

Heckscher Museum

High Museum of Art

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Museum of Art at Brigham Young University

Museum of the City of New York

Neuberger Museum of Art

New Jersey State Museum

Norton Museum of Art

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery

Spencer Museum of Art

Telfair Museum of Art

The Baltimore Museum of Art

The Brooklyn Museum of Art

The Corcoran Gallery of Art

The Detroit Institute of Arts

The Hudson River Museum

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Montclair Art Museum

The Phillips Collection

Yale University Art Gallery

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Richard Hayley Lever, Australian American, Autumn, Oil on Canvas

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