The Collection of John M. Hall 
10 September 2020
Robert Mangold, Folded IV (from Plane/Figure series) - Image 1 of 1
The Collection of John M. Hall 
Robert Mangold, Folded IV (from Plane/Figure series) - Image 1 of 1
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Robert Mangold b.1937

Folded IV (from Plane/Figure series)

1993
soft-ground etching and aquatint in colors on Arches Aquarelle Watercolor paper 22½ h × 29¾ w in (57 × 76 cm)
estimate: $1,000–1,500
result: $3,640
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Signed, titled and numbered to lower edge ‘IV 47/60 R Mangold’. This work is number 47 from the edition of 60 printed by Spring Street Workshop, New York and published by Pace Editions, Inc., New York.
provenance: Collection of John M. Hall
An example of this work is held in the collection of the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.

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The work is a shape, but it’s a shape in relation to the drawn figure in the composition; it’s the marriage of those two things that starts the work in motion—what’s going to be inside and what the outside is going to be, or how the outside works in relation to the inside.

Robert Mangold, BOMB

The Collection of John M. Hall

John M. Hall was an architectural photographer for publications including New York Times Magazine, Elle Decor and Architectural Digest; he saw his work as "telling the story" of what architects built and his process was to "go from the overall to the the details," with a keen eye for the subtleties of line, form, light and shadow. Hall lived with art and design that reflected his refined sensibilities: simple, livable furniture by Eames, Knoll and Aalto, the clean lines and smooth surfaces of 1930s streamlined moderne lamps, china and glassware and minimalist works on paper by Robert Mangold and Richard Serra. Tucked into a small Manhattan apartment, Hall's collection shows the ease with which iconic 20th century designs were meant to be lived with.

John M. Hall photographed his apartment in the Flatiron district for an article highlighting
his collection in the June 1999 issue of House Beautiful

Hall grew up in North Carolina and studied architecture at North Carolina State University; he was also a ballet dancer and moved to New York in the mid-1970s to study at the American Ballet Theater School. In 1977, Hall relocated to Paris and worked as a model. It was during this time that he developed an interest in black and white photography. 

Thank God I missed post-modernism. I guess I'm just a classicist at heart. 
—John M. Hall

His structural, classical style was informed by photographers such as André Kertész and Walker Evans. Hall returned to New York in 1981 and began his career as an architectural photographer, with a particular interest in private gardens, Greek Revival and Biedermeier. He approached capturing these spaces as making "something that is more than just a document, [but] something that is visually exciting." 

The same is true of Hall's personal collection, with its attention to and exuberance for designs that are "clean and clear and simple as possible," while also still captivating. After Hall's passing in 2019, significant contributions from his collection were gifted to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Yale University Art Gallery and his alma mater's Gregg Museum of Art and Design; the present selection of works celebrates Hall's sophisticated and gracious eye for design.

I'm not a design historian. I'm attracted to objects because I find them interesting and, yes, beautiful. And that's where this 20th-century sensibility started for me. There's just something so right about it.

John M. Hall

An Interview with John M. Hall

An interview with Hall from the 1980s shows him on location photographing a home and sharing his philosophies on design, architecture and photography.
 


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