And Hale presented himself as an authority on drawing, whose lineage he could supposedly trace back as far as Titian. Unfortunately, 'The Elements of Drawing' focused not only on anatomy, but also on light and shade, and on perspective. If the class had purported to be nothing more than an anatomy class, or had I been less naive, I'd have been better served. To his credit, Hale was a wonderful anatomy teacher the five-eye proportional system which he invented and taught is a simple and mostly accurate means of handling human anatomy. He also was popular with the New York intelligencia his students had included Muhammed Ali, Jackie Onassis and many others. Hale had fascinating theories, and a zippy lecture style (which incidentally I have freely adapted for my own work teaching anatomy, figure drawing, and the Bible). It was not until some 23 years later, when I began teaching, using the same tools, I discovered that this was not difficult at all, although it seemed to impress my twenty something students as much as it had impressed me when I was their age. He would draw diagrams on a huge sheet of drywall, using a stick of charcoal mounted on a four-foot pointer, held at the back and manipulated with movements of the shoulder. And this particular Messiah had no credentials other than the fact that he was a brilliant and entertaining lecturer and theorist. I wasn't looking for a teacher, but a Messiah.

I wish I could ask, 'what was I thinking?' but I know exactly what I was thinking. When I returned, in 1976, I took the advice of a friend and enrolled in Robert Beverly Hale's class, 'The Elements of Drawing'. I'd gone there a few months three years earlier, but left, dissatisfied with the teaching I found there. 41 years ago, I moved back to my birthplace, New York City, to study at the Art Students League.

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