Phil Hale

American figurative painter (born 1963)

Philip Oliver Hale (born 1963) is an American figurative painter who currently resides in London, England.

Hale was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1963. He is related to a number of American painters, including Ellen Day Hale, Lilian Westcott Hale, Philip Leslie Hale and Robert Beverly Hale. His mother and grandmother were also artists. Hale spent the formative years of his childhood in Nairobi, Kenya, where his parents were stationed for work.

At age 16, Hale was apprenticed to American painter Rick Berry in Boston, where he lived for three years until migrating to the United Kingdom. During this period, he illustrated a number of book covers for American novelist Stephen King, including The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three published in 1987 and his gift edition of Insomnia. In 2014, Hale was recruited by G Star RAW to produce their Spring/Summer ’14 campaign “The Challenge”. He created a series of photographic collages of a chess match between Chess World Champion Magnus Carlsen, and model Lily Cole. In 2015, he exhibited 15 oil paintings and at 18 pencil drawings in an exhibition titled Life Wants to Live. The exhibition showed at Jonathan LeVine's Gallery in New York and was later published as a book. He also recently formed the movie production company "unprofessional. com" with his son Callum Hale Thomson. It specialises in bespoke analogue filmmaking. Hale's work is featured in major collections including the Palace of Westminster, National Portrait Gallery, Lord's Cricket Ground, Sony and Warner Bros.