Early Life and Career

Halley first came to prominence as a result of the geometric paintings rendered in intense day-glo colours that he produced in the early 1980s. His practice as an artist is usually associated with minimalism

Minimalism

Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...

, neo-geo, and neo-conceptualism

Neo-conceptual art

Neo-conceptual art describes art practices in the 1980s and particularly 1990s to date that derive from the conceptual art movement of the 1960s and 1970s...

. Halley is also known as a writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

, publisher and teacher

Teacher

A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...

.

He received his B.A in 1975 from Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 and his Master of Fine Arts

Master of Fine Arts

A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...

 degree from the University of New Orleans

University of New Orleans

The University of New Orleans, often referred to locally as UNO, is a medium-sized public urban university located on the New Orleans Lakefront within New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. It is a member of the LSU System and the Urban 13 association. Currently UNO is without a proper chancellor...

 in 1978. He stayed in New Orleans for two more years until he moved to New York in 1980. He has lived and worked there ever since.

Halley first exhibited in 1985 at International with Monument, an art gallery in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

's East Village

East Village, Manhattan

The East Village is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, lying east of Greenwich Village, south of Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side...

. Since then, he has had exhibitions with Mary Boone Gallery, Sonnabend Gallery, Galerie Bruno Bischofberger

Bruno Bischofberger

Bruno Bischofberger is an art dealer and gallerist from Zurich, Switzerland, and a major figure in the international art market for several decades...

, Jablonka Galerie, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

The Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac was founded in 1983 and has specialized in European and North American contemporary art.Today the gallery’s headquarters are housed in the magnificent Villa Kast on Salzburg’s Mirabellplatz. In 1990, a gallery featuring over 600m2 of exhibition space was opened in Paris....

 , and Waddington Galleries. The first major survey of his work was held at the CAPC museum in Bordeaux

Bordeaux

Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...

, France in 1992.

Halley has lectured extensively, including at the Art Institute of Chicago

Art Institute of Chicago

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...

 and the American Academy in Rome

American Academy in Rome

The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo in Rome.- History :In 1893, a group of American architects, painters and sculptors met regularly while planning the fine arts section of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition...

. He was a co-founder of Index Magazine

Index Magazine

Index Magazine was a prominent New York City based publication for art and culture. It was created by Peter Halley and Bob Nickas in 1996. The publication featured a mix of interviews with famous arty folks like Björk with not so-famous New York personalities like Queen Itchie or Ducky Doolittle.It...

 and published the magazine from 1996 to 2006. Halley's writings on art, influenced by French post-structuralism

Post-structuralism

Post-structuralism is a label formulated by American academics to denote the heterogeneous works of a series of French intellectuals who came to international prominence in the 1960s and '70s...

, have been published in two volumes. In 2001, he received the Frank Jewett Mather

Frank Jewett Mather

Frank Jewett Mather was an American art critic and professor.He was born at Deep River, Conn., and graduated from Williams College in 1889 and from Johns Hopkins in 1892: he studied also at Berlin and at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Paris...

 Award for art criticism from the College Art Association

College Art Association

The College Art Association of America is the principal professional association in the United States for practitioners and scholars of art, art history, and art criticism...

.

Since 2002, he has been Director of Graduate Studies in Painting and Printmaking at the Yale School of Art

Yale School of Art

The Yale School of Art is one of twelve constituent schools of Yale University. It is a professional art school, granting only Masters of Fine Arts degrees to those completing studies in graphic design, painting/printmaking, photography, or sculpture....

.

His works are held in the collections of MoMA

Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...

, the Tate

Tate

-Places:*Tate, Georgia, a town in the United States*Tate County, Mississippi, a county in the United States*Táté, the Hungarian name for Totoi village, Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Romania*Tate, Filipino word for States...

, and the Guggenheim

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...

.

Further reading

• Peter Halley, "Collected Essays, 1981-87", Bruno Bischofberger, 1988. ISBN 0-932499-68-6
• Peter Halley, "Recent Essays 1990-1996", Edgewise Press, N.Y, 1997. ISBN 0-9646466-1-7

External links

• Official site
• Index Magazine - published by Peter Halley from 1996 to 2006