He was successful, sold works consistently, and his notebooks record what he sold, to whom and at what price. Oil paintings were also a significant and exhibited part of his prolific output.

When Hale’s father died in 1868, he inherited a substantial sum of money and was probably able to live independently from then on. He married in 1869, moved to a large house in Stoke Bishop and had four children, although none appear to have had further offspring themselves.

Press clippings show that Hale had many favourable reviews and was well known. He was elected an associate of the Royal Watercolour Society in 1871 and a full member in 1881. In 1904 he was also elected a member of the Royal West of England Academy (RWA) in Bristol, where he regularly exhibited and sold, as well as elsewhere including the RWS, in Paris in 1893 and Manchester in 1900. At the Royal Academy he showed six works sent in from London addresses between 1869 and 1896. At the RWS centenary dinner in 1904, Hale’s position on the top table as one of its then senior members, only six places from the president, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, suggests the regard in which he was held.

Hale was clearly influenced by Harding, but also by Ruskin and Turner. In correspondence with Harding, he expresses concern about Pre-Raphaelitism and states he does not intend to adopt that style. Like Turner, he travelled widely around Britain and Europe, gathering material for his paintings. On many of these trips he took his whole family for weeks and months at a time and his landscape subjects reflect the breadth of his travels. Hale corresponded with other artists and his opposition to the Pre-Raphaelites, for example, is evidenced in his letters to Edward Robert Hughes (1851–1914), who was closely associated with them.

Hale’s main interest was landscapes and the atmospheric effects of light and weather. His sketchbooks include many studies of clouds and natural lighting effects, in particular those of dawn and dusk. His later-life oils later show a significant shift towards marine painting and in American auction houses he is frequently referred to as a ‘marine painter’. The many local views he produced around Bristol and Bath also provide valuable topographical and historical information and he continued to sell work until 1928, shortly before he died in Bristol, aged 92, on 7th March 1929.

Hale’s work frequently appears in European and American auctions. His style varies considerably, perhaps because he did not align himself with any one school or fashion. He nevertheless forged a successful artistic career through a time of great change and, while his work is now little known and rarely exhibited, many examples can be found in public collections.

Tony Marwick/Art Detective