|
About Helen Hamilton
Helen Hamilton, who became one of America’s greatest *post-impressionists, was the daughter of *Hamilton Hamilton. She was born with her twin sister Margaret in June of 1889, shortly after her father had been elected to full membership at the *National Academy of Design. At that time, his palette was lightening as he moved more toward the impressionist aesthetic. Helen showed artistic talent at an early age. At around the age of nineteen, she moved with her family to Pasadena, California. She received on-the-spot training from her father in the Sierra Madre Mountains and was initiated to impressionism. By 1910 the family was living in New York, where Helen enrolled at the National Academy. The Hamiltons also had a house in *Silvermine, Connecticut on Buttery Road, near the home of *D. Putnam Brinley (see entries on *Hamilton Hamilton and the *Silvermine artists’ colony).
In 1911, Helen sent a letter of inquiry to William *Macbeth, requesting exhibition space (Macbeth Gallery Papers, AAA, Roll Nmc 50, frame 523). By 1912, Helen was taking part in the Silvermine group shows. Her works from this period have all of the characteristics of impressionism: a *high-keyed palette, *blue and purple shadows, and juxtaposed strokes of contrasting color. Helen knew the latest art trends and personalities by exhibiting with her father and by being exposed to the activities of the *Association of American Painters and Sculptors, which was led by several Silvermine artists -- the group that sponsored the famous *Armory Show in 1913. Although neither Hamilton nor his daughter exhibited there, works by Silvermine artists Solon Borglum, D. Putnam Brinley, and *Elmer Livingston MacRae were on view among the sensational works of Duchamp, Brancusi, and Archipenko. It is here that Helen probably discovered *Van Gogh, since fourteen of his canvases were on display: the modern Dutch master would become Hamilton’s major source of inspiration.
Helen continued to be moved by the world around her: flowing water, old mills, and rocky banks. Like the other Connecticut colonies, Silvermine had its own *Spirit of Place, which the artists strove to capture. For Helen, the natural features of the Silvermine region lent themselves to the creation of her own vigorous post-impressionist style. From numerous post-impressionists ranging from Van Gogh to the *Fauves and Matisse, she borrowed stylistic features to form a successful American imagery. During the years of the first world war, Hamilton developed a modernist style in which form was designed with color and *subject matter was secondary.
Never having traveled to Paris, Helen relied on the avant-garde art scene in New York, where she discovered the latest trends and styles. While certainly not an imitator of the Fauves, Helen Hamilton produced an oeuvre that was "more advanced in form and color than that of other Americans who attempted to find new alternatives to impressionism" (Love, 1986, p. 28). Perhaps to counteract her small stature and shy personality, Hamilton attacked the canvas boldly with a palette knife, using energetic forms, bright colors, and thick pigment. As Randall S. Ott explained, she "interpreted the movements and rhythm of nature with the use of bold colors and bold strokes."
Like Giulia Lama, who produced colossal, painterly murals in eighteenth-century Venice, Helen Hamilton serves as an example to refute those who still believe that works of art by women are characteristically small, overly fussy or linear, and sentimental, decorative, or otherwise unimpressive. Later, Saxby Vouler Penfold, who interviewed Hamilton for the New Canaan Advertiser (Penfold, 1933) pointed out that Helen was an example of what women artists could achieve, given equal educational opportunity: "her work ranks second to none when compared with that of the greatest male painters."
After her father’s death in 1928, Helen received continuously favorable comments from critics. That summer, a New York Times critic (E.A.J., 1928) wrote that she "employs impasto cleverly," and Edward Alden Jewell (1931) stated that Hamilton’s Maine Coast, "adventurous in its rhythms of color and composition, made a bold place for itself on the wall, reducing paler and more decorous companions to silence." In the 1930s, Hamilton’s modernist watercolors are comparable to those of John Marin, for both artists "described shapes and space with an enigmatic mix of colorful arabesques and hard, angular passages, flat reflective surfaces, and deeply opaque patterns, all in all a subjective interpretation of the ever changing volumes of nature" (Love, 1986, p. 45). Hamilton’s subsequent powerfully expressive canvases, executed with a palette knife, belong to the history of post-impressionism. Had Hamilton not limited herself to working in Silvermine, and had she made an effort to obtain dealer representation, she may have achieved the fame that she deserves.
REF.
Jewell, 1931; Penfold, 1933; Love, 1986; Preato, Langer, and Cox, 1988, pp. 15, 35, 53; Love and Marshall, 1999, pp. 44-45; Ott, n.d. |
Paintings by Helen Hamilton
| Rocky Seacoast |
| oil on canvas:30 x 34 inches |
| signed: lower left |
|
| |
Click Picture to Enlarge
|
| Fisherman's Pier |
| oil on canvas: 14 x 18 inches |
| signed: lower right |
|
| |
Click Picture to Enlarge
|
| Rocky Shore |
| oil on canvas: 18 x 12 inches |
| signed: lower right |
|
| |
Click Picture to Enlarge
|
|
)
)
)