Born in 1927, Hal McIntosh's art career started in early childhood with studies at the Detroit Art Institute and the Toledo Museum. He became the youngest person ever to be invited to set up his easl at the Research Studio (now the Maitland Art Center) founded and run by the famed artist and architect Andre Smith and financed by Mary Curtis Bak, the daughter of the publishing magnate Cyrus Curtis. It was there that Hal became friends with Charles Prendergast, the brother of Maurice, and a painter in his own right.
Formal studies were at the University of Michigan with a Graduate Degree followed by a teaching position in sculpture and design. Following school he worked with the portrait painter Jerry Farnsworth and his wife Helen Sawyer [represented in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum in New York] at the North Truro School of Art on Cape Cod Massachussetts. While there he learned portraiture well and over the years has produced over two thousand fifteen hundred One portrait of Mrs Walter P. Chrysler was completed at a sitting where all the while the radio was abuzz with the news of the sinking of the Andrea Doria! From his home on Cape Cod Hal can see the home of Edward Hopper, whom he knew and admired.
Mr. McIntosh is the rare painter who has always made his living as an artist. He has conducted many classes as Director of the Lynchburg Virginia Fine Art Center for five years, for thirty years at his own school in Winter Park Florida, and at Loch Haven School now the Orlando Museum. Durring these years he has had Thirty six One-Man-Shows at Galleries from Winter Park and Naples Florida to venues on Cape Cod. He is a founding member of the Winter Park Art Festival, now in it's 54th year, where he exhibited 17 times, and is a former Artistic Director for The Albin Polasek Museum and Sculpture Gardens in Winter Park.
Hal maintains studios in Winter Park and on Cape Cod, following the seasons while continuing to paint his favorite subjects.
Exhibitions:
Florida: The Mary Curtis Bok Research Studio
The Winter Park Sidewalk Arts Festival (founding member)
The Golden Cricket Gallery
The Barbazon Gallery
The Center Street Gallery
Solarte Gallery
The Miller Gallery (Winter Park and Cincinnati, OH)
The Naples Art Gallery
Gallery One, Naples (and Petosky, MI)
The Maitland Art Center
Walt Disney Epcot Center
Epcot Art In The Garden
Casa Feliz
Lake Eustis Museum of Art
Cape Cod: The North Truro Gallery
The Blue Herron Gallery
The Left Bank Gallery
Collections:
Hal McIntosh has paintings in many collections here and abroad, including the following;
The American Embassy, Pakistan
The Tupperware Corporation
The Orlando Airport Authority
Barnet Banks of Florida
Liberace
Jose Ferrer
Princess Yasmin Aga Kahn
Mr. Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.
Sun Trust of Florida
The Orlando Utilities Commission
The City of Winter Park
Epcot World Showcase