19 Facts About Hayley Lever

Richard Hayley Lever was an Australian-American painter, etcher, lecturer and art teacher.

Hayley Lever's work was part of the art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics and the 1932 Summer Olympics.

Hayley Lever excelled in painting classes at Prince Alfred College under James Ashton and on leaving school continued to study under Ashton at his Norwood art school.

Hayley Lever was a charter member of the Adelaide Easel Club in 1892.

Hayley Lever moved to St Ives, a fishing port and artistic colony on the Cornish coast.

In St Ives, Lever shared a studio with Frederick Judd Waugh, and studied painting techniques under the Impressionists Olsson and Algernon Talmage.

Hayley Lever painted in the French port villages of Douarnenez and Concarneau, Brittany, directly across the English Channel from St Ives.

In late 1904 Hayley Lever made a trip back to Adelaide, where his mother was dying of tuberculosis.

In 1908, Hayley Lever did a series of paintings called Van Gogh's Hospital, Holland expressing the profound influence he felt from that artist.

In 1911, Ernest Lawson, an Impressionist painter, persuaded Hayley Lever to move to United States, saying he would have greater success there.

Hayley Lever arrived in New York City in 1912 and painted views of the Hudson River, Times Square and Central Park.

Hayley Lever exhibited with this group regularly, but eventually left New York to settle in Massachusetts.

From 1919 to 1931, Hayley Lever taught art classes at the Art Students League of New York where he maintained a Gloucester studio and often traveled to paint on Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard.

In 1933, Hayley Lever was named Director of the Green Mountains summer art school at Smugglers Notch in Stowe, Vermont.

Hayley Lever taught painting classes at the Forum School of Art in Bronxville, New York from 1934 to 1935.

In later life, Hayley Lever was inflicted with arthritis in his right hand, which prevented him from further travel and forced him to concentrate on still-life subjects instead.

However, following the death of his wife Aida in 1949, Hayley Lever was confined to his home, where he continued to paint from 1953 until his death.

Hayley Lever died on 6 December 1958 at his home in Mount Vernon, New York.

News of his death surprised some: Hayley Lever had all but disappeared from public view over two decades earlier, despite once having been enormously popular and critically acclaimed.