Eventually Hale found her way back to her easel by the mid-1930s and resumed taking commissions for portrait work and capturing landscapes near her Dedham home, with most of these works being done in charcoal and pencil. Sandra, a sweet head and shoulders drawing of a young girl with braided hair, was likely commissioned by the family of the subject, Sandra (Merritt) McGrath. She was born in 1935, therefore the piece dates to the mid-1940s, and it was later lent by the sitter to an exhibition of Hale’s drawings held at the Boston Athenaeum in 1981. 

More information about this painting...

Provenance:

Antiques shop, Essex, Massachusetts

To private collection, Roslindale, Massachusetts, 2017 to present

Labels:

From THE BOSTON ATHENAEUM LIBRARY / 10 ½ Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. 02108, U.S.A. / Sandra Merritt McGrath / 1981

Exhibitions:

1). Exhibition of Lilian Hale’s drawings, held at the Boston Athenaeum, Boston, Massachusetts, July 13 – August 7, 1981