ENCHANTMENT The Art and Life of Lilian Westcott Hale

About the Book

As the title suggests, this book concerns the art and life of the world's only "American Linear Impressionist", Lilian Westcott Hale. Born in Connecticut in 1881, Hale was educated primarily at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and lived for many years in nearby Dedham, moving to Charlottesville, Virginia after the death of her beloved educator, art critic, author, and painter husband, Philip Leslie Hale. A woman, Hale far outpaced the success of many men, including her husband. During her early decades of activity, Hale garnered innumerable naational awards, accolades, and prizes, and international acclaim for her oil portraits of children, women in interiors, and charcoal sketches of snowy landscpes, all created in an Impressionist style utilizing only vertical strokes. Hale was the originator and sole practitioner of a technique which paradoxically used line in an Impressionist manner. While her classic art fell out of favor during the Modernist 1940s and later, it is now once again very much in vogue. My relationship with the artist's only child, her daughter, Nancy, was of immeasurable assistance in the production of this book. Diane Elizabeth Kelleher Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, 2013.

About the Author

Born and educated in Massachusetts, at age sixteen Ms. Kelleher began her undergraduate studies in the Liberal Arts at prestigious Wheaton College in Norton. By twenty, she had received the degree of "Bachelor of Arts with Distinction" from Simmons College, Boston. Graduating in the top five percent of her class, while majoring in Sociology, Economics and Art History, beyond "Distinction" additional baccalaureate honors conferred included: Academy (Collegiate Honor Society), Departmental Recognition (History of Art), Dean's List and receipt of academic grants. Further general art historical studies and specialized new directions reflecting a burgeoning interest in American Art and Culture, as well as European Painting of the Nineteenth Century, were undertaken within the Department of the History of Art, Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy program at Boston University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. By age twenty-four she had independently researched and authored her first book and the first art historical book ever written on Boston artist, Lilian Westcott Hale. Unlikely Icon was independently researched and written a year later. Currently, she is writing her thesis in English and American literature for a Master of Arts Degree at Clark University, Worcester, entitled : "William Faulkner's Lena Grove." She was awarded a full scholarship. She is the niece of renowned Hollywood producer, the late Paul W. Keyes. An independent research author in the arts, her documentary books include: Enchantment: The Art and Life of Lilian Westcott Hale America's Linear Impressionist Marvelous Miniatures and Perfect Pastels: The Art and Life of Laura Coombs Hills, America's Lyric Impressionist Unlikely Icon: The Art, Culture and Philosophy of Forest Hills Cemetery, Boston: A Nineteenth Century Symbol of American Values How to Research, Write, and Publish an Art History Book in American Art Her other books include: The Fantasmagorical Feline Adventures of Little Miss Libby and the Mystery of the Rare, Turquoise Blue, Boston Trumpetter Swan The Secrets of Willow Creek