George
Henry Hall

George Henry Hall (1825–1913) was an American still-life and landscape artist. He studied art in Düsseldorf and Paris and he worked and lived in New York City, the Catskills of New York and in Europe. His works are in museum collections in the United States and Europe. Over the course of his career he sold 1,659 paintings.
George Henry Hall was born on September 21, 1825, in Boston, Massachusetts, and raised in Manchester, New Hampshire.[1][nb 1] His father was a successful lumber dealer and his ancestors had come to the United States in the early 18th century from Ireland.[5]

Hall attended public schools[5] and studied art from 16 years of age.[2] He joined a Boston art association, since there was no art school there, and met with its members in their studios to share critiques and encouragement. He also sent some of his works to New York's Art Union, where they were sold.[5] Hall went to Europe with Eastman Johnson to study in 1849, funded by the sale of genre scenes and portraits. They studied at the Düsseldorf Academy,[1] which had a good reputation for the genre painters it produced. They studied drawing, proportion and anatomy.[5] Hall was there for more than one year.[1] He then went to France and studied in Paris for a year, visited Switzerland, and was in Italy for a year, where he had a studio in Rome.[1][4][5]

Over the course of his life, Hall was based in the state of New York, but took international trips. For instance, in the 1870s he traveled to Palestine, Egypt and Spain.[1] Hall had many friends from the Hudson River School.[4]