South Carolina Artists: William Halsey

William Halsey was a South Carolina artist who became one of the most influential and well-known artists of the 20th century South. Born in Charleston in 1915, Halsey showed creative aptitude at an early age, and was tutored in art by Elizabeth O’Neill Verner, one of the most influential artists of the Charleston Renaissance, and Ned Jennings, who introduced Halsey to the emerging world of modern art. After high school, Halsey attended the University of South Carolina for a few years before transferring to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (then called the Boston Museum School). Here he could maintain his focus of studying and creating art, and he became particularly interested in exploring different media such as fresco. 

Upon completing his studies in Boston in 1939, Halsey earned a fellowship for 24 months of study and travel in Europe; however, with tensions building and the beginning of the second World War, he was permitted to travel to Mexico instead. He and his wife, fellow artist Corrie McCallum, traveled to Veracruz and then settled in Mexico City, where Halsey was surrounded by the blended local cultures’ brilliant colors, textures, geometric shapes, and dynamic compositions. The influence of Mexican art became clear in his abstract expressionist work, and his interest in the country’s art and visual culture grew throughout his life. 

Upon return to the United States, Halsey and his family moved to Savannah, Georgia, where Halsey served as the director of the art school at the Telfair Academy (now the Telfair Museum). His career in art education continued when the family returned to Charleston in 1945, and he became the director of art classes at the Gibbes Gallery (now the Gibbes Museum of Art). Here, he continued to create his own distinctive works, while teaching the next generation of Charleston artists through publicly offered classes as well as private instruction. 

In the 1950s Halsey and his wife Corrie joined with local sculptor Willard Hirsch to found the Charleston Art School, which they operated until 1964. In 1965, Halsey became a founding faculty member in the College of Charleston’s studio art program, where he taught until his retirement in 1984. He died in 1999, leaving a legacy of vibrant, expressive abstract art, and of expanding art education in the South. Today, you can visit the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston, a unique museum and arts education space named in his honor. 

Interested in viewing and collecting artworks by William Halsey and Corrie McCallum? We recommend checking out the George Gallery here in Charleston!

More Charleston Artists:

Alfred Hutty | Alice Ravenel Huger Smith | Elizabeth O’Neill Verner | Ned Jennings | Jasper Johns | Merton D. Simpson