Queer Places:
George Eli Patrick Hall (March 17, 1863 - November 28, 1911) was an American artist and author.
George Eli Patrick Hall was born March 17,1863 in Nice, France, while his parents (Charles Olmsted Hall and Mary Abbie Dale) resided there at a time when Nice was under Italian rule. Educated in European schools and universities—Galliard Coll. and Academie des Sciences, Lausanne, Switzerland, to 1878; Univ. of Leipzig, 1878-81, Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, 1881-85—Hall was fluent in English, Italian, French, and Spanish.
As a young man, Abel Hermant became friends with George Hall, who lived in boarding school, in 1879, in Lausanne. Abel was twenty, and George was 19. Their friendship survived a decade after George Hall left for California. Abel Hermant's letters to George Hall, kept in the Yale University Library, recount all these adventures experienced by the young writer.
When Hall moved to California he stopped briefly in Santa Barbara before settling in San Francisco, where he was known to reside at the Pacific Union Club, with an office at the Parrott Building. Known as "one of the best-known cosmopolites in San Francisco," Hall served as dean of the city's consular corps, was selected by the Sultan to be Consul-General for Turkey (1891), for Persia (1895), and received the decoration of the Order of the Lion and the Star from the Shah of Persia, and was knighted by the King of Portugal. A multi-talented person, Hall also possessed a splendid tenor singing voice, and painted canvases coveted by connoisseurs.
At the Mechanics' Institute's 25th Industrial Exhibition in 1890, Hall showed Morning on Fallen Leaf Lake, Evening on Fallen Leaf Lake, Scene on Lake George, View of Marble Head, Beverly Beach, and Mountain Lake. Hall was the author of La Chasm darts les Alpes (Paris, 1884), Some Comments on the Eastern Question (London, 1897), and A Balloon Ascension at Midnight (San Francisco, 1902). In a response to the California State Library inquiry, Hall indicated the use of the pseudonym Rham Harim
George E. Hall served as a member of the School of Design Standing Committee along with Alice Chittenden, Edward Bosqui, and others, in 1891. He was a "Contributing Member" to The San Francisco Art Association, 1895 and 1896. A portrait of George E. P. Hall, as Consul of Turkey, appeared in Master Hands in the Affairs of the Pacific Coast. Hall was a leading club member at the University, the Bohemian, and the Pacific Union Clubs of San Francisco. A newspaper account noted: "George Ely Patrick Hall left San Francisco years ago. He went to Washington. Then he went to South America. He was in Chile and in 1909 it was reported he was in Lima, Peru. His death in Lima, Peru, possibly a suicide, was given as November 28, 1911. This date was confirmed in a notice published in Lima, Peru, November 28, 1911.
My published books:/p>
