As we often do, we may rearrange segments when our own narrative objectives differ from those of the original writer, though never diverging from a common commitment to a factual story.
This photo accompanied the obit.
"Lee Hall in her studio in Massachusetts in 2013. Credit Christopher Clamp"
Lee Hall was also an author and an administrator. Her books include “Betty Parsons: Artist, Dealer, Collector” (1991) and “Elaine and Bill: Portrait of a Marriage,”(1993) about the de Koonings. And she wrote “Common Threads: A Parade of American Clothing” (1992), and “Athena: A Biography” (1997), about Greek history. A review of the latter is available at Kirkus Review.
About her early life we learn: "Lee Hall was born...in Lexington, N.C. Her father, Robert, and her mother, the former Florence Fitzgerald, divorced when Lee was young, and she grew up with her mother in Florida.
"Resisting pressure from her mother to attend secretarial school, she returned to Lexington after high school to live with her grandmother and enrolled in the Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina, in Greensboro (now the Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro), where she studied with the abstract painter John Opper. She received a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1955.
"She continued her education at New York University, earning a master’s degree in art education in 1959 and a doctorate in creative arts in 1965. She went on to do postdoctoral work at the Warburg Institute in London.
"While working toward her doctorate, she taught at Keuka College in Keuka, N.Y., and Winthrop College in Rock Hill, S.C. In 1965 she was named head of the art department at Drew University in Madison, N.J."
Ten years later, she continued her painting while also serving as "president of the Rhode Island School of Design; appointed in 1975, she was asked to deal with fiscal chaos and difficult faculty politics. Her tenure was marked by conflict, as she struggled, with some success, to end the practice of deficit spending and increase enrollment.
"She was less successful in coaxing more work and more involvement in campus life out of teachers accustomed to a three-day workweek. Faculty members responded by organizing a union drive and, in early 1983, going on strike. To reinforce the message, they collected quarters to buy Ms. Hall a one-way ticket back to New York. She left the school later that year.
"In a speech to the School of Educational Management at Harvard in 1980, Ms. Hall listed her criteria for the qualities needed by a college president: “the aloofness of a cat; the cunning of a fox; the eye of an eagle; the hide of an elephant; the slipperiness of an eel; the courage of a lion; the stubbornness of a mule; the tenaciousness of a terrier; and the wisdom of an owl. To which should be added: a heart of gold; nerves of steel; and a stomach of iron.”
Lee Hall would continue her painting, administrative jobs, and writing after that Ivy League summary. She is credited with encouraging the careers of various artists.
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