Philip Leslie Hale 1865-1931

James P. Butler (sold: Parke Bernet Galleries, New York, March 25, 1971, lot 69, illustrated)
Acquired by the present owner at the above sale

Buffalo, New York, Burchfield Center, State University College at Buffalo, Recognizing the Painterly Tradition in American Art: 1850-1920 From a Western New York Collection, March-May 1980, no. 29, illustrated in color as the frontispiece

William H. Gerdts, Monet's Giverny, An Impressionist Colony, New York, 1993, pp. 44-45, illustrated in color pl. 34

William H. Gerdts writes, "Hale chose to show with the new Salon some years after he had perfected his almost Pointillist mode of long, thin brushstrokes, total abandonment of line, and very limited tonal range, dominated by chrome yellow--seen in such summery works as Girl with Birds.  Hale's version of Impressionism is unique among American artists; it draws on the paintings and theories of the Neo-Impressionists Georges Seurat and Paul Signac and is allied with work by artists such as Henri Martin and Giovanni Segantini...The dreamy, somewhat stupefied appearance of the figures in some of Hale's paintings of the 1890s, such as Girl with Birds, relates to contemporary European Symbolism; Hale's awareness of this movement is confirmed by his art reviews.  Hale wrote from America to Giverny on July 29, 1895, that he had gone 'très impressioniste' and was trying to pitch his paintings a 'little lower than my Giverny things but higher than my last year's work'--suggesting that his previous Giverny paintings, such as Girl with Birds, were exceptionally avant-garde" (Monet's Giverny, An Impressionist Colony, New York, 1993, pp. 44-45).