William M. Halsey (1915–1999) was an influential abstract artist in the American Southeast, particularly in his home state of South Carolina.

His mural studies for the Baltimore Hebrew Congregational Temple were included in Synagogue Art Today at the Jewish Museum, New York City (1952).

[2] Another early influence was the local artist Edward I. R. Jennings, who had studied in New York City with Arthur Wesley Dow.

"[5] In his later works Halsey used fabrics from Africa that were packing materials around sculptures Simpson imported and sold in his gallery.

In 2006 in a tribute for the catalog William Halsey: Mastery of the Modern, Merton Simpson wrote "I had the good fortune of growing up in Charleston when he was the top artist in the region, what a blessing.

In 1939, having just graduated, he was offered a one-man exhibition at the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where he also completed a series of frescoes.

The monograph covered four decades of work by this artist whom the director of the Greenville County Museum of Art, Jack A. Morris Jr, described as "a pioneer of abstract painting in the South and a nationally recognized talent.

"[1] In 1953 Halsey, his wife Corrie McCallum, and local sculptor Willard Hirsch joined to form the independent Charleston Art School which they operated from 1953 to 1964.

In 1965 Halsey started his university teaching career, as the founding faculty for the studio art program at the College of Charleston.

In 1984 upon his retirement from teaching at the College of Charleston, the gallery at the Simons Fine Arts Center (now the Halsey Institute) was named in his honor.