William Talmadge Hall

1948

A Marine Artist and Landscape painter.

I’m a Fourth Generation Block Islander who’s family was engaged in commercial fishing and self-sufficient agriculture on Block Island until World War II. 

I work in Watercolor, Oil, Acrylics, Gouache and Charcoal. A graduate with a BFA in Illustration from Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI -1970, I spent 30 years in the Advertising business in Creative Services eventually owning my own Agency, William Hall Associates.

I paint pictures about people working at, “non-heroic” labor on Block Island and other New England coastal Islands. I create paintings that depict or explain aspects of island life from first settlement to present times.  

My series, “Obstructions to a Landscape” explores the affect Time, Society, Progress, Iconography and Messaging have had on the American Landscape.

As an Illustrator I tend to be a story teller. To better explain key stages in Block Islands development, I created a series of, “Story Posters“ to shed light on key elements that shaped Block Island and other East Coast Islands. (These include: The Block Island Double Ender, The Atlantic Swordfish and The Dory.)