Halsey-McCallum Foundation

Author's Statement:

I met William Halsey in the summer of 1997 when I worked for his family, photographing and cataloguing slides of William's life's work. Before that summer, I had never known a modern artist, watched a painter work continuously, or studied one individual's life work. Each morning, as I entered the family home and studio on Fulton Street in downtown Charleston, I saw William, painting ferociously with oil sticks. Some days he worked calmly, completing soft, loose, abstract compositions. Other days I found him scrambling, tearing works to shreds, often cursing the paper, the materials, his art. But regardless of his mood or the style of the finished piece before him, 83 year old William Halsey always looked invigorated, passionate, and focused. Every day, he strove to achieve something new in his art--something I often could not see or understand, but something I could not help but feel as I watched him paint.

That summer experience, unloading 4' x 5' canvases, unwrapping art school studies, and finding old portraits and paintings of Charleston and Mexico, deeply moved me. Each day as I pulled different works of art from dusty racks and hidden portfolios, I realized that I was uncovering a house full of art that had a life in itself. And I felt strongly that the reclusive 83-year old artist, working diligently in an open studio room next door, had a hidden life worth uncovering, too.

I did not know anything about William Halsey when I began working for him. Aside from having an extensive knowledge of his work, I still did not know much about his past life when I left Charleston at the end of the summer. But I always had a strong feeling about his artistic devotion. When Halsey died on February 14, 1999, I decided that I wanted to pursue a thesis on his life--hoping there would be enough information to produce a substantial body of written material. The family generously welcomed my research efforts and provided me with unlimited access to Halsey's work, notes, scrapbooks, and personal belongings.

Unfortunately, artists like William Halsey often do not have extensive records, biographical data, or written texts. Information rests in family members' memories, scrapbooks, disorganized archives, and the art itself. Finding the correct date, the lost painting, or even the right word to define the meaning or the style of an unknown body of work is challenging, but the result is indescribably rewarding. At the heart of every painting described, celebrated, and studied in art history is the creative spirit and soul of an individual artist. This spirit links together all of the styles, movements, and objectives of art, past and present. My thesis is intended to provide a partial introduction to the life, work, and spirit of William Halsey, a reclusive Southern painter, often called the "Dean of contemporary art in South Carolina."

As a college professor and local modernist, Halsey is credited with teaching and inspiring hundreds of younger artists and individuals to pursue and support contemporary art; however, as a devoted painter and abstract artist, Halsey has not yet been credited (beyond the Southern region) with producing an important body of work that could provide a unique and alternative insight into modern American art of the 20th century. Through the seven hundred or so paintings and drawings I photographed in the summer months of 1997, I discovered a wealth of work in one American's development in art: a testimony to freedom and creative independence.

Though not a political painter, William Halsey did survive and experience the aftermath of two world wars, the great depression, the New Deal, integration in the old South, and the complete remodeling of his historic hometown. His artistic responses to these experiences and events provide insight into understanding the regional perspectives and developments of 20th century American art. This thesis is designed to present the spirit and work of William Halsey, and to encourage the exploration and rediscovery of other unknown artists whose forgotten work could contribute to our comprehension of 20th Century American art.