Life and Work
Born Henry William Lowe Hurst in London in 1865, he was the son of Henry Hurst, a well-known African traveller and publisher. He was educated at St. Paul's School in London and soon after started recording the political instability of Ireland through drawings and illustrations. He travelled to the United States of America where he found work illustrating newspapers in New York and Philadelphia. Hal returned to Europe studying art at the Royal Academy Schools and the Académie Julian in Paris. He exhibited extensively at all the principal London galleries and was elected member of the Royal Society of British Artists in 1896, Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours in 1898, and the Royal Institute of Oil Painters in 1900. He was a founder member of the Royal Miniature Society from its inception in 1896 and elected Vice President, a position he held until stepping down in 1913 - he was given the distinction of Honorary member status the following year.
Hal shared a studio at 23a South Audley Street, Mayfair, London with Alyn Williams founder of the Royal Miniature Society. An motivated, prolific and respected artist, Hal illustrated in excess of 20 published books including Mark Twain's The American Claimant. In addition, his illustrations were published in Punch, Harper's Weekly, Vanity Fair, The Idler and the Illustrated London News, amongst others.
He married and had one son and two daughters with whom he lived at 9 Colville Mansions, Bayswater. He was the friend and neighbour of Douglas Sladen, the well-known author and travel writer, who also owned many of Hurst's paintings. Sladen described Hurst as being 'a very clever painter' and having a 'beautiful young wife.'
The National Art Library, London holds letters written by Hurst to Sir Isidore Spielmann and Reginald S. Hunt. Hal Hurst died in 1938.
Read more about this topic: Hal Hurst
Famous quotes containing the words life and, life and/or work:
“The fate of the poor shepherd, who, blinded and lost in the snow-storm, perishes in a drift within a few feet of his cottage door, is an emblem of the state of man. On the brink of the waters of life and truth, we are miserably dying.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Never before since Jamestown and Plymouth Rock has our American civilization been in such danger as now.... [The Nazis] have made it clear that not only do they intend to dominate all life and thought in their own country, but also to enslave the whole of Europe, and then to use the resources of Europe to dominate the rest of the world.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“Gustav Aschenbach was the writer who spoke for all those who work on the brink of exhaustion, who labor and are heavy-laden, who are worn out already but still stand upright, all those moralists of achievement who are slight of stature and scanty of resources, but who yet, by some ecstasy of the will and by wise husbandry, manage at least for a time to force their work into a semblance of greatness.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)