Hale, Salomón, 1897-1964

Salomón Hale (1897–1964) was a prominent art collector who ran a fine leather import business in Mexico City. Born in Lipno, Poland, Hale immigrated to Mexico in 1921, and subsequently helped many of his relatives (and others) emigrate from Poland and settle in Mexico, thus saving most of his family from the Holocaust. He became an active member of the Jewish community in Mexico City and was involved in several Jewish transnational organizations. He was married to Anna Penansky, an American-Jewish immigrant from Chicago, and the couple had their first child in 1929.

Hale was considered a visionary art collector, and had already developed an impressive collection of paintings by modern European and Mexican artists when he became one of the first patrons of Inés Amor’s pioneering Galería de Arte Mexicano, the first modern art gallery in Mexico City which opened in 1935.

In addition to buying paintings from dealers, previous owners, and directly from the artists themselves, Hale commissioned some pieces, such as a 1929 portrait of his sister-in-law, Miriam Penansky, painted by Frida Kahlo, and possibly a portrait of himself by Diego Rivera, whose early paintings were of special interest to Hale. Outside of his collection of modern art, Hale was a respected bibliophile and collector of antique books, and it is in this context that he may have first met Guillermo Echániz. Both Echániz and Earl Stendahl considered Hale a friend, a business associate, and a sometimes-rival collector. Still, very little is known about Hale’s collection of pre-Hispanic objects, which appear with much less frequency in exhibitions and publications than his modern paintings. The majority of Hale’s collection seems to have remained in the family, with paintings occasionally coming to auction.

Although Hale’s collection was never catalogued, second-hand accounts reveal that, in addition to those already mentioned, it boasted paintings by Jesus Guerrero Galván and prints by Leopoldo Méndez. Hale also owned paintings by Joan Miró and Picasso, among them Paysage aux Affiches (Landscape with Posters, 1912; National Museum of Art Osaka). His large collection of works by Rivera included Retrato del escultor Elie Indenbaum, Hombre del Cigarrillo (Portrait of Sculptor Elie Indenbaum, Man with a Cigarette, 1913; Modern Art International Foundation), Edge of the Forest (1918; private collection, Mexico City), The Flower Vendor (1927; private collection, Mexico City), and Portrait of an Aurea Porcel (1928; private collection, Mexico City), among many others.