GREENVILLE, N.C. -- A memorial service for Paul Hartley, 65, who died Thanksgiving Day after a 19-month battle with cancer, will be held Sunday (Nov. 29) at St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church in Greenville.
Hartley, a longtime professor of studio art at East Carolina University School of Art and Design, was a renowned painter. He was an exponent of mixed media painting in which oil, acrylic, collage and appropriated imagery are combined to make a single painting.
His own works were characterized by abstractly painted backgrounds with pristinely rendered realistic objects floating on the surface of the canvas. The objects in the foreground were always painted using an oil glazing technique practiced by the Renaissance painters.
Hartley joined the ECU faculty full-time in 1975 after having served as a lecturer at the university from 1970-1972. His final semester at ECU was the fall of 2008 when the cancer was diagnosed.
“There is no art instructor in this state who taught more students than Paul Hartley,” said Lee Hansley, the Raleigh art dealer who has represented Hartley for the past 17 years. “He has influenced more young artists than anyone in North Carolina’s university system. That will be his legacy, along with a remarkable body of work in collections far and wide,” Hansley added.
An exhibition, entitled “The Legacy of Paul Hartley,” will be held at Lee Hansley Gallery in January. It will feature works by outstanding students of Hartley, many of whom are now art professors.
A painting for the North Carolina Museum of Art’s collection is making its way through the approval process now, thanks to the largess of three Greenville art patrons--Nelson Crisp, June Ficklen and Mrs. Jordan Whichard III. Hartley has works in the collections of the Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, the Greenville Museum of Art, the Cameron Museum of Art in Wilmington, the Barton College Museum in Wilson and the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem.
Additionally, his paintings are in the collections of private institutions like Bank of America, GlaxoSmithKline, Philip Morris USA, the Transamerica Corporation and Merrill Lynch, Inc. A suite of eight major Hartley paintings is permanently displayed at the Sheraton Hotel (formerly Hotel Europa) in Chapel Hill.
His work was the subject of over 25 solo shows and over 75 small group or themed exhibitions over the course of his career. His last show was entitled “Looking Back” which was in September and October of this year at Lee Hansley Gallery. In 2002 the Greenville Museum of Art organized a retrospective, complete with illustrated catalogue.
Hartley was born Dec. 30, 1943, in Charlotte to the late Paul Hartley Sr. and to Mrs. Kathleen Board of Winston-Salem. His early years were spent in Atlanta where he met his wife of 42 years, Lane Harville Crawley.
He earned a B.A. in 1967 at the University of North Texas in Denton and in 1970 an M.F.A. in painting at East Carolina University. After being hired to teach art at ECU, Hartley was named head of the painting program, a position he held until he entered a phased retirement.
In addition to his wife and mother, Hartley is survived by a daughter, Lorin, and son-in-law Mark Kaley of Greensboro; a son, Paul Randolph William Hartley of Chapel Hill; a brother, William Joseph Hartley of Winston-Salem; and two sisters, Susan Hartley Guinn and her husband, Gilbert, of Greenwood, S.C., and Kathy Hartley Smith and her husband, Robert Meier, of Boone; and one granddaughter, McLane Kaley of Greensboro.
Just to say that I miss you, dear cousin, and that I love you always. Elizabeth Hartley Filliat, aka "Bootsie"
ReplyDeletePaul Hartley was one of the biggest influences in my life, without question. I was in his first class of students in September of 1970 at ECU. He was not much older than I was, it seemed. Think about this: I specifically remember actual things he said to me while teaching me how to draw and paint. I can't say that about many people from 40 years ago—if any. because when Paul spoke—you'd better pay attention! I admired him so much... wished I had his ability and quiet confidence. I was shocked and so saddened by his death.. but for his family—please know that he changed my life. Paul gave me license to follow my desire and need to be an artist. Paul gave me all that he had—day after day. Sail on Paul—you were an original.
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