Alfred Hallett

Alfred W. Hallett (1914–1986) was an English painter, who spent most of his adult life in north India.

Hallett wanted to study art from the time he was young but his parents were members of the Exclusive Brethren sect and his mother faced excommunication for encouraging him.

They finally bought a church property previously used for furloughs by missionaries at Dharamkot, set amongst snow-capped mountains in beautiful deodar forests, well above McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala, at an altitude of about 2,200 metres (7,218 feet).

The house had been built by a retired English Major in the 1840s, who had originally tried to establish a strawberry farm nearby, but it was badly damaged in the massive and deadly 1905 Kangra earthquake.

Hallett was well known for his portraits, landscape and flower paintings some of which are exhibited at the Naam Art Gallery in the small rural locality of Sidhbari, near Dharamshala in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.

Alfred Hallett at home in Dharamkot with painting of Tibetan friend, c. 1980.
Gaddi Woman Cutting Grass by Alfred Hallett c. 1980