Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Lilian Westcott Hale created a broad range of impressionist* and realist* style paintings including portraits, landscapes, still life, figure and interior scenes. She was particularly noted for charcoal drawing and for her innovation of placing a still life on a window sill to reveal the landscape beyond. Often when she exhibited her work, she placed her sketch drawings next to its companion painting.

Hale was the youngest of three daughters born to Edward and Harriet Westcott and was obviously gifted from a young age. She attended the Hartford Art School in Connecticut where her talents were noticed by William Merritt Chase, one of the country's renowned Impressionists, who proved to be her major in...