Art Legends of Orange County: The Art of Hal McIntosh
Oral history--United States
Winter Park (Fla.)
Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens
Art--Southern States
Artists--Florida
Painters--Southern States
Painting--Florida
Hopper, Edward, 1882-1967
Education--Florida
Teachers--Florida
Educators--Florida
Polasek, Albin, 1879-1965
Naples (Fla.)
Maitland (Fla.)
Oral history of Hal McIntosh, conducted by Erin Parke on March 16, 2015. McIntosh is a nationally renowned artist who currently resides in Winter Park, Florida. Born in 1927, Hal McIntosh began his formal studies at the Detroit Art Institute in Detroit, Michigan, and the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, Ohio. At age 18, the Art Research Studio (present-day Maitland Art Center) in Maitland, Florida, selected him as the institution’s youngest-ever artist in residence. His talent later earned him the Directorship of the Academy of Fine Arts in Lynchburg, Virginia, where he served as a museum director and teacher for five years. As a resident of Central Florida, McIntosh taught at the Loch Haven Art Center in Orlando and even ran his own institution known as the McIntosh School in Winter Park for 30 years. McIntosh splits his time between his Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and Winter Park studios. <br /><br />With an artistic career lasting over 60 years, Hal McIntosh’s influence on our community is profound. His bold abstractions, tranquil waterscapes, and stirring portraiture, all masterfully painted with a touch of McIntosh’s signature Orientalism, have been widely exhibited in the area and are part of numerous regional collections, both private and public. Deep connections with the people and places of Orange County have allowed McIntosh to join the ranks as one of the greats and to be remembered eternally as an Art Legend. <br /><br />In this oral history interview, McIntosh discusses his early life and education, his teaching philosophy, and where he gets the inspiration and influence for his art. He also mentions his relationship with Albin Polasek and Emily Muska Kubat Polasek. Eric Varty, a close friend of Hal, also contributes briefly to the conversation.
McIntosh, Hal
Parke, Erin
Original 1-hour, 6-minute, and 42-second oral history: McIntosh, Hal. Interviewed by Erin Parke on March 16, 2015. <a href="http://www.polasek.org/" target="_blank">Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens</a>, Winter Park, Florida.
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application/pdf
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Sound
Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Winter Park, Florida
Naples, Florida
Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens, Winter Park, Florida
Research Studio, Maitland, Florida
Mary Louise Curtis Bok and Jules André Smith
Bok, Mary Louise Curtis, 1876-1970
Zimbalist, Mary Louise Curtis Bok, 1876-1970
Philanthropists--United States
Philadelphia (Pa.)
Mary Louise Curtis Bok (1874-1970) with Jules André Smith (1880–1959) in the main garden of the Research Studio (now the Maitland Art Center) in Maitland, Florida, in the 1940s or 1950s.<br /><br />Born in 1874, Bok was the only child of wealthy Philadelphia-based businessman Cyrus H. K. Curtis and Louisa Knapp Curtis, whose Curtis Publishing Company produced two of the most popular magazines in America: <em>The Saturday Evening Post</em> and <em>The Ladies' Home Journal</em>. Bok's early interests included music and writing for the magazine her father founded under the pen name of Mary L. Knapp.<br /><br />Recognized for countless philanthropic pursuits, Mary Louise Curtis Bok provided J. André Smith with sufficient patronage to establish The Research Studio in the early 1930s. As heiress to the Curtis Publishing Company, she is noted for establishing the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, funding the Annie Russell Theatre at Rollins College in Winter Park, and the construction of Bok Tower Gardens near Lake Wales, along with her husband Edward W. Bok. After Edward Bok’s death in 1930, Mary Louise married Efrem Zimbalist and was thereafter known as Mary Louise Curtis Bok Zimbalist.<br /><br />Born in 1880 to American parents in Hong Kong, raised in New York and Connecticut, and educated at Cornell University, Smith worked for several years as an architect, never giving up on his first love of art. His early passion was printmaking, specifically etching. In 1915, he was awarded a gold medal at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, California. During World War I, Smith continued to work in both drawing and printmaking, selected as one of eight artists by the U.S. government to go to France in 1918 to record military activities. He would later publish those works in a book titled <em>In France with the American Expeditionary Forces</em>.<br /><br />While travelling to Miami in the 1930s, Smith made an unplanned stop in Maitland, Florida. Having experienced a stunning sunset on nearby Lake Sybelia, he decided to travel no further and would go on to build his winter home and studio here, which is now the Maitland Art Center. Frustrated and disappointed with the area’s lack of support for contemporary art, Smith began plans for a residential "Lab-Gallery" that would encourage artistic exploration and experimentation in a sheltered studio environment. The studio compound, later known as The Research Studio, was the winter residence of prominent American artists such as Ralston Crawford, David Burlick, Ernest Roth, Milton Avery, Arnold Blanch, Doris Lee, and Hal McIntosh. André Smith’s vision continued to thrive for over two decades under the generous financial support from his patron, philanthropist Mary Curtis Bok. Smith’s legacy is alive and well today at the Art & History Museum’s Maitland Art Center through its residency programs and exhibitions.
Original color photograph: <a href="http://artandhistory.org/maitland-history-museum/" target="_blank">Maitland Historical Museum, Art & History Museums - Maitland</a>, Maitland, Florida.
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eng
Still Image
Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Research Studio, Maitland, Florida
Annie Russell Theatre, Winter Park, Florida
Bok Tower Gardens, Lake Wales, Florida