Lilian Westcott Hale (American, 1880–1963)

Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Lilian Westcott Hale was known for her impressionist and realist paintings, including portraits, landscapes, still lifes, and interior scenes. She studied at the Hartford Art School, with William Merritt Chase, and later at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts under Edmund Tarbell and Philip Leslie Hale, whom she married in 1902. Hale gained early acclaim for the quality of her delicate draftsmanship drawing.

The birth of her daughter, Anna Westcott Hale, in 1908 caused her to give up her Boston Studio where she had worked with leading artists including Frank Benson, Joseph De Camp, her husband, and sometimes John Singer Sargent.

The Hales then moved to Dedham, Massachusetts, near Boston, and she began sketching domestic scenes, which revealed her obvious delight in motherhood. She set up her studio at home, and from her window painted many quintessential New England snow scenes and garden views. It was said that her love of gardening equaled her love of painting.

Hale won numerous awards, including a Bronze Medal at the Buenos Aires Exposition (1910), a Gold Medal at the Pan-Pacific Exposition (1915), and the prestigious Altman Prize at the National Academy of Design (1927).

She continued to paint and exhibit widely, earning recognition for her mastery of light, color, and intimate subject matter, and is remembered as one of America’s leading women artists of her era.