COMPTON HALL, Christopher

Christopher Compton Hall (1930-2016) exhibited at The Royal Academy and is a member of the Royal Society of British Artists and the Royal Cambrian Society. In the collections of Museum of London, National Museum of Wales, Ashmolean.

Christopher served in an army intelligence gathering unit in Malaya before enrolling at the Slade School of Art in London where he developed his style and subject preferences which he would use for the majority of his career. His style was realistic and detailed. As subject matter, he liked to paint landscapes or townscapes which quite often included people in the compositions.

During his summer breaks and early in his career, Christopher began to travel abroad to countries such as Ireland, the Netherlands and, in particular, Italy. It was in Italy, in a small hill town of Recanati, he first met his future wife, Maria, in 1954. He returned several times with friends, once in a car formerly owned by King Zog of Albania.
Christopher and Maria were married in 1957 and, after their honeymoon, Christopher and Maria returned to England to live.

He had his first solo show in the Arthur Jeffress Gallery in London in 1958 and subsequently had one most years. Interestingly in a “Young contemporaries” exhibition catalogue of 1955 among whose selection committee were Henry Moore and L.S. Lowry. He was elected Mayor of Newbury.