Richard Hayley Lever
(American, 1876-1958)

"Summer Afternoon, St. Ives", ca. 1910

oil on canvas
signed lower right, verso with two "Bernard Black Gallery, New York, N.Y." labels, listing the artist's name, title, medium and exhibition history.
Framed.
49" x 59", framed 56-1/2" x 67"

Provenance: Bernard Black Gallery, New York, New York; The Estate of Nancy Brown Negley, Houston, Texas.

Exhibited: "Hayley Lever: Selected Works, ca. 1910-1933", April 1967, Bernard Black Gallery.

Notes: Why am I so incredibly and incurably romantic about Cornwall? One's past, I suppose; I see children running in the garden .… The sound of the sea at night .… almost forty years of life, all built on that, permeated by that: so much I could never explain."
-- Virginia Woolf, 1921.

Best known for his marine paintings, Hayley Lever's long artistic career resulted in works of various subjects in numerous styles, from impressionistic to expressionistic.
He was born in South Australia in 1875 and after completing and excelling at art classes at Prince Alfred and Norwood Art School, he moved to England in the 1890s, studying art in London and painting at St. Ives, a fishing port and popular artistic colony on the Cornish coast. There, Lever shared a studio with Frederick Waugh, and studied painting with Albert Julius Olsson and Algernon Talmage. A painting by Frederick Waugh is included in our July auction.
"Summer Evening, St. Ives" was produced during his stay in the small fishing town that has captured the imagination of artists and writers since the early 1800s, drawn to the dramatic landscapes, and the light illuminating the waters from dawn to dusk, a result of the bay's geographical position.
While St. Ives greatly contributed to the revolutionary styles of British Modernism, many European and American marine artists flocked to the picturesque village, finding inspiration in the soft light and turquoise waters.
In this quiet painting of fishing boats, moored in the little harbor, captured on a warm summer afternoon, one can feel the sunlight upon one's face, each color brightened in the sun-drenched harbor.
The artist has chosen to execute the scene in the wide, thick brushstrokes, reminiscent of the great impressionist Vincent Van Gogh whom Lever idolized.
We are invited to linger and meditate on the colors and shapes of an environment that is essentially timeless as it is devoid of people and landmarks.

Previously relined. Signs of inpainting along right and left edges; sails in upper left. Some colors illuminate under UV light due to their chemical composition. Areas of craquelure in upper left (sails). two brown stains in lower right (water). Frame with losses along edges, surface marks and abrasions.