Hal English

Harold J. “Hal” English (1910-2008) was an artist, painter, free-lance advertising designer, teacher, lecturer, and art director who is primarily known for his portraits & landscapes, nudes & figurative works, illustrative work, and realistic pen & ink drawings. He worked in oils, watercolors, charcoal, pastels, and pen & ink. Hal was born in Buffalo, NY, and grew up in the Lovejoy area of the city. He graduated from the Buffalo Technical High School, and studied art and drawing at the Albright Art School under Florence Julia Bach (1887-1978), also in Buffalo.

During the Depression, Hal earned money by doing hand-painted signs for various storefront windows, auto dealers and rooftop billboards. He also worked on an ice wagon, delivering 50-pound blocks of ice to homes without the convenience of electric refrigerators. Circa 1934, as a freelance agent he began working for the Buffalo office of the worldwide advertising agency Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn. For 30 years at BBD&O he served as an advertising & commercial artist, advertising consultant, lettering specialist and also served as art director for various departments.

During World War II, Hal created detailed mechanical drawings of blown-up sections of intricate aircraft assemblies for the Curtiss-Wright Corporation which were used in their repair manuals around the world. Active in the Park School of Buffalo, Snyder, NY, he was chairman of the Fathers Committee and a member of the Board of Trustees, and also produced the school’s first recruiting catalog in the 1950’s. After retiring from BBD&O in 1964, English devoted himself to the fine arts, beginning with commissioned portraits.

Hal taught art and mechanical drawing at Buffalo State College, Buffalo, NY, and also at the SUNY Urban Center in Buffalo. Circa the mid 1970’s, he was the artist in residence at Hilbert College, Hamburg, NY teaching summer and fall art classes in drawing, painting, portrait & figures. He also taught art classes at the Centennial Art Center, Hamburg, NY circa the mid-late 1980’s and privately for many years out of his studio. He continued working until he was in his early 90’s, and earned the title of “Master Pastelist” after winning Best-in-Show for three years at the Pastel Society of America’s National Exhibition in New York City, of which he was a member. He was also a member of the Western New York Artists Group, the Hamburg Art Society and the Cheektowaga Creative Arts Guild (President). Hal exhibited with the WNYAG and Hamburg Art Society, as well as in numerous art shows, festivals and venues in and around the Buffalo area and New Mexico, winning several awards for his works. In 1982, Hal won the prestigious Grumbacher Award at the “National Small Painting Exhibition” held by the New Mexico Art League, and the Albuquerque Tribune reported that his pastel portrait of a Taos Indian chief stole the show that year.

In reviewing a 1995 retrospective show, the Buffalo News Art Critic Richard Huntington cited Hal for his, “workmanlike style--a blend of `40’s and `50’s illustration and an Edward Hopper-ish kind of solid realism.”[1]

In 1938, Hal married Helen K. (née Schnoor, 1912-2002) English, a teacher in the West Seneca Central School District who concentrated on fifth grade social studies. They had two children; son, Dale C. English, former assistant metro editor at the Courier-Express and a contributing writer for Business First and member of the New York State Legislative Correspondents Association, as well as the American Newspaper Guild; and daughter, Cheryl E. (Martin), a professor of history at the University of Texas at El Paso, TX. A longtime parishioner of St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church in South Buffalo, Hal became associated with the St. John Vianney Roman Catholic Church in Orchard Park, NY. After the famed ‘Blizzard of 1977’, he and his wife moved from their 272 Eden Street residence in South Buffalo, NY in 1978, to 136 Heather Hill Drive in West Seneca. In 2001, they moved to Orchard Park, NY where Hal remained until his death in 2008. His wife Helen, passed away shortly after their move in 2002 at the age of 89.

Mark Strong, Harold J. “Hall” English, http://www.meibohmfinearts.com/artists.aspx?ID=1015, (Accessed 12/30/2011)