Haldane MacFall (24 July 1860 – 25 July 1928) was a British Army officer who became a prominent art critic, author, essayist, and illustrator. Born Chambers Haldane Cooke McFall in Raebareli, Bengal (present‑day Uttar Pradesh, India), he was the son of army surgeon David Chambers McFall and Abigail Crawford. After the death of his mother, the family returned to England, where MacFall was educated at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and commissioned as a second lieutenant in the West India Regiment in 1885.
Military career
MacFall served in Jamaica and West Africa with the West India Regiment. A tropical illness contracted during his West African posting forced his retirement from the army in 1890, at which point he held the rank of lieutenant.
Literary and artistic work
Settling in Paris in the early 1890s before returning to England, MacFall pursued writing and illustration. His first novel, The Wooings of Jezebel Pettyfer (1897), drew on his Caribbean experiences and featured a West Indian protagonist. He followed with The Masterfolk (1903), a satirical depiction of bohemian life in London and Paris. In 1903 he married Mabel Anne Plumridge.
MacFall contributed articles and illustrations to periodicals such as The Graphic and developed a reputation as an art critic whose writings attracted the attention of artists like James Abbott McNeill Whistler. He produced numerous biographies of artists, including Henrik Ibsen, Whistler, Henry Irving, François Boucher, Jean‑Honoré Fragonard, and Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, as well as histories of art movements. His works were often illustrated by himself and featured his own designs for bookplates and cover art. He exhibited his artwork at the Royal Academy and collaborated with contemporary artists such as Henri Gaudier‑Brzeska and Claud Lovat Fraser.
Later life and legacy
During World War I MacFall was 54 years old; he remained active in the literary and artistic communities. He died in London on 25 July 1928 and was interred at Highgate Cemetery. MacFall is remembered for bridging military experience with a prolific career in art criticism and literature, contributing significantly to early‑20th‑century British cultural discourse.
