Halsey-McCallum Foundation

Conclusion

Devoted to his native Charleston and convinced that his strongest artistic inspirations came from the colors and textures of his hometown, William Halsey refused to move to and join the New York art scene. Despite his eagerness to participate in contemporary art movements, he did not feel comfortable in the urban art centers of America. Commenting on New York in the 1950s, Halsey later said, "I didn't like it there and it wasn't my atmosphere or my background. Charleston was an area that I understood, even though it was conservative."(95)

Halsey chose to remain in his hometown for over sixty years of his artistic career. During this time he produced a massive amount of work, inspired by his local surroundings, his interests in primitive cultures, and his responses to creative isolation. Although his career and lifestyle were uncommon to native Charlestonians, Halsey's attitude and approach to producing art was consistent with critical opinions on how an artist should work. Clement Greenberg once wrote, "The American artist has to embrace and content himself, almost, with isolation if he is to give the most honesty, seriousness, and ambition to his work. Isolation is, so to speak, the natural condition of high art in America."(96)

But this "natural condition" of Halsey's geographical location and painting style did not attract art historical attention in the 1940s and 1950s when Halsey first appeared in the mainstrean art market in New York. Instead, writers and critics of the period preferred the ten or fifteen white male artists who resided in New York and socialized in elitist artist goups. This small circle of artists came to represent the Abstract Expressionist movement, a critical period in American art history "believed to mark the coming to maturity and independence of the visual arts in the US. . . .and the quintessential artistic embodiment of the qualities and ideals that the nation's mainstream, middle-class culture holds dearest: individual freedom, boldness, ingenuity, grand ambition, expansiveness, confidence, power."(97)

But in defining the movement that expressed these essentially "American" qualities, art historians did not consider another major aspect of American culture: regional development.

Across America, in newly emerging cities and towns, artists employed modernist theory and "were deeply committed to producing their own vital strain of art.(98) These artists produced personal, expressive works of art that employed progressive techniques of the time, yet their art was overlooked because they were not working in the right place at the right time. Consequently, their art continued to be overlooked for the following decades. By failing to attract the attention of the critics in the 1950s, they lost the opportunity to experience "success" in the art trade. Furthermore, in some respect, they lost the opportunity to experience fame in later years, because critics and historians, satisfied with the short list of important artists and the straightforward restrictions of the movement, ignored and overlooked their work, assuming that because they did not attract attention by 1955, their work was not worthy of recognition.

Conceding that the canonical record of Abstract Expressionism is incomplete, art historians must begin to readdress Abstract Expressionism to include the forgotten artists, some of whom continue working today. William Halsey's strong body of work is one testament to the need for further exploration in the study of Abstract Expressionism and American modern art. He represents the enduring artistic spirit of the 20th century, a figure we should not continue to overlook in art history.

(95) Interview with Jack Morris, 1970.

(96) Barbara Rose, Art Since 1900 (New York: Praeger, 1975) 4.

(97) Leja, 4.

(98) Susan Landauer, Paper Trails: San Francisco Abstract Expressionist Prints, Drawings, and Watercolors, Exhibition Catalogue (Santa Cruz, CA: The Art Museum of Santa Cruz County, 1993) 9.