Nathan Cabot Hale was a distinguished mid-century American artist, known internationally as a sculptor of the human figure. Born in Los Angeles, California in 1925, he trained at the Chouinard Art Students League, and then in New York at the Art Students League, where he later taught anatomy and figure drawing. A fellow of the National Sculpture Society and academician at the National Academy of Design, Hale’s formal training was minimal. He studied the work of the masters with intensity. One can see Rembrandt in his drawings, the deep and dreamlike colors of Gaugin and the geometric abstractions of Picasso in his paintings, and Rodin’s passion for human form, flow and sensuality in his sculpture. But what is central to all of his work, no matter the medium is the pulse of life, and the gravitational pull of the sun and the moon.

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With very little formal education, Hale was an intensely curious autodidact. He was drawn to psychology and the teachings of Jung and Reich, as well as the poetry of Blake and Whitman, and the masters of the Italian Renaissance.  He was so curious about the human figure, he asked for and was granted permission to learn alongside medical students so that he could dissect cadavers at NYU medical school’s anatomy and physiology lab.  When he was in his 60s, he went back to school, and crafted his own field of independent study, receiving a PhD in morphology and perceptual psychology from Union Graduate School. 

 

Hale was an adept illustrator, first honing that craft as a young man, in both industrial and advertising jobs, and later, illustrating a version of Treasure Island, with drawings that come alive as they draw young readers into the classic story.  He also got work acting in radio plays as well as in local theatre productions in Greenwich Village in the 1950s. He always wrote. His poetry is sparse and filled with feeling and passion.  His illustrated book of bawdy fables, The Elephants’ Peaceable Kingdom, is salty, humorous and profound.

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