Random Inspiration: Margaret Bernadine Hall

It is not uncommon for a talented artist, no matter how extensive his or her oeuvre, to become primarily associated with only a single one of their creations.  The artist may have many recognizable works, but there is a single piece that has become idiomatic, and whenever that artist is mentioned, everyone pictures that particular work before any other.  The remaining works in their catalog may not be as good, just as good, or some maybe even better, but it is that one peculiar work that becomes their emblem.

What is a less common situation, however, is to find an artist whose signature work becomes their standard because it is nearly the only survivor of their career's output.  But such is the case of Margaret Bernadine Hall, whose arresting painting, Fantine, at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, is one of only three of her paintings for which whose whereabouts can be accounted:  the others include a portrait of the music scholar Sedley Taylor in the collection of Trinity College, Cambridge, and a portrait of Hall's brother, Douglas, held in private hands, which only came to light in 2011.  (There are five other known paintings by Hall, but these are all copies of works by Murillo, Raphael, Veronese, and Ribalta, done for the Sisters of the Chapel of the Transfiguration in Cincinnati, Ohio).

Margaret Bernadine Hall was born sometime in 1863 in Wavetree, Liverpool.  She was the eldest daughter of ten children born to Bernard Hall (1813-90), a wealthy West India merchant who became a philanthropist, Alderman, and the first Mayor of the City of Liverpool (1879-80).¹  After the family moved to London in 1882, the nineteen-year-old Margaret travelled to Paris to study at the Académie Krug, an atelier for women artists run by Édouard Krug (1829-1901) and Augustin Feyen-Perrin (1826-1888).  She spent five years at Krug's academy, and then remained in Paris for three more years before embarking on a world tour.  During the next six years she visited Japan, China, Australia, North America, and North Africa, before returning to Paris in 1894.  In 1907 she moved back to England, but her time there was short, and after only three years in her home country, she passed away at the home of her friend George Calderon, a playwright, and the son of the artist Philip H. Calderon, R.A..  Hall was only 47.

Painted a year after Victor Hugo's death, Fantine was Hall's imagining of the fictional character from the Frenchman's novel Les Misérables.  As an archetype, Fantine the "saintly prostitute," was a popular figure in late 19th century art:  while still not a respected member of society, she was nonetheless both revered for her devotedness as a mother, and pitied as a symbol of the unfair treatment to which women of the era were subjected.  When shown at the Société des Femmes Peintures, Hall's Fantine was awarded an honorable mention.

After Hall's death, her brother Sir Douglas Bernard Hall M.P., offered Fantine and another painting, Les Abandonées to the National Gallery in London, but both were rejected.  The following year Sir Douglas offered the same paintings to the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, a city which had benefitted greatly from Douglas' father's largesse, and the gallery accepted Fantine.  

It is difficult to estimate the total number of paintings Hall executed during her career.  There were enough at one time to hold a retrospective exhibition in her honor in 1925, but what became of those paintings is uncertain.  Other than the handful of works previously mentioned, her paintings have disappeared, and the hauntingly dramatic image of Fantine, still in the possession of the Walker Art Gallery, is all that really remains to show the world the artist she may have truly been.

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There is very little information to be found online about Margaret Bernadine Hall.  What cans be found exists primarily on Wikipedia, and that is sourced mostly from the book, Finding Margaret:  The Elusive Margaret Bernadine Hall by John Hussey, published in 2011. Hussey's book is still in print, and can be purchased from many locations, including direct from the publisher, Countyvise (£12.50 + shipping).

¹ "Margaret Bernadine Hall," retrieved March 31, 2014 from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Bernadine_Hall].