Carl Hall
Growing up in Detroit, Michigan, Carl Hall (1921-1996) was considered a child prodigy as an artist. As a teenager, he was offered a three-year scholarship to study art at the Meinzinger School in Detroit, a prestigious art school where he studied under renowned Havana-born artist Carlos Lopez (1908-1953). There he studied Renaissance and Early Modern masters such as Rembrandt (1606-1669), which fostered his interest in detailed paintings rather than the popular Expressionist paintings of the time. Because of this interest, Hall spent time in various museums around the Detroit area, soaking in the art of the old masters and admiring their draughtsmanship. In particular, The Visitation by Dutch master Rembrandt from 1640 inspired him with its lighting, atmospheric quality, and meticulous detail.
In 1942, Hall was drafted into the army for World War II and was initially stationed at Camp White in Medford, Oregon, where he met his wife Phyllis. Hall loved Oregon and its unending greenery and dedicated himself to returning to the state after the war. He was quoted saying, “Oregon was Eden again. It was clean, everything was bright, it was romantic. … I said to myself, if I come through the war, I’ll come back to Oregon’”.
During the war, he would sketch scenes of war and nature. While stationed in the Philippines and Okinawa, he developed his interest in painting the everyday landscape rather than cultural landmarks. After surviving the war and moving to Salem, Oregon in 1947, Hall's career took off nationally. He took Constance Fowler’s place as head of the Art Department at Willamette University in 1948, and that same year, LIFE magazine wrote an article about him. The article included one of the first mentions of Hall as a Magic Realist- an artist that paints realistically but casts a mystic atmosphere over the painting- marked by crisp lines, a lack of obvious brushstrokes, and an atmospheric look. Hall often painted panoramic views of the Willamette Valley and areas around Salem that offer a timelessness he sought to memorialize.
His work meshes various artistic styles and movements, including the Renaissance, Romanticism, the Sublime, and the Hudson River School. Artists such as Salvator Rosa, Rembrandt, and Thomas Cole (1801-1848), considered the founder of the Hudson River School, all inspired his work. They all also look at the place of humans in this world- humans versus the cruel and kind aspects of nature. He sought universality, but instead of using abstraction, he used the processes of the old masters, a long and detailed process that allowed him to survey the land in great detail.
And it is best said in the book Eden Again by Roger Hull, “Hall’s commitment to the concept of Northwest Regionalism as the basis for a universal art was itself a form of resistance in the 1950s, when Abstract Expressionism seemed ready to supplant forever the American Regionalist painting of the 1930s and 1940’s” (12).