Beverly Hallam became known for pioneering polyvinyl acetate, which became known as acrylic. She was born in 1923, and studied at the Massachusetts College of Art and at Syracuse University. She was also the winner of many awards and prizes.

From 1945-51 she painted figures and landscapes in oil, black oil and encaustic. Work in acrylic of flowers and ocean and rock formations followed. She has worked in high relief on stretched linen and in monotypes in oil, printed by hand using gelatin rollers. Since 1981 she has worked in acrylics, using an air brush on large canvases, mostly of enlarged florals.

Beverly Hallam from 1945 to 1949 was Chairman of the Art Department at Lazell Junior College, and from 1949 to 1962 was Associate Professor of Painting at Massachusetts College of Art. She has also lectured extensively on the "Use of Polyvinyl Acetate (Acrylic) as a Painting Medium." Her studio has been in York, Maine.

Beginning 1949, she spent her summers in Ogunquit, Maine. There she was especially fascinated with the dramatic rock formations, which she painted with much color and linearity.

Using polyvinyl acetate, a quick drying, milk based polymer emulsion now called acrylic, she combined that substance with finely ground powdered pigment and tissue paper or mica talc to depict the three-dimensional nature of some of her landscape, rock formation paintings.

Her work is found in the collections of Harvard University Art Museum, and the Corcoran Gallery.

Sources:
Les Krantz, American Artists

Louise Tragard, Patricia E. Hart and W.L. Copithorne, A Century of Color: Ogunquit Maine's Art Colony, 1886-1986

Who's Who in American Art, 2003-2004