Robert Beverly Hale

He grew up in New York City and studied at Columbia University, where he did post-graduate work at the School of Architecture.

He also studied at the Art Students League under George Bridgman and William McNulty, and at the Sorbonne in Paris.

[1] His lectures at the League included demonstrations of life-size figure drawings, much as had those of his teacher and predecessor, George Brandt Bridgman.

Among his other accomplishments, Hale facilitated the Met's acquisition of Jackson Pollock's monumental poured painting Autumn Rhythm, 1950, amid opposition from the museum's trustees.

His careers as instructor, curator, and artist were apt to overlap: according to Hale, "One day in East Hampton de Kooning came up to my little studio there and said that I was ruining any number of people by telling them about anatomy".