Hildegarde Hamilton, Oil Painting Harbor Scene with Naval Ships Sailors & Boats Hildegarde Hamilton

Hildegarde Hamilton (Florida, Virginia 1898-1970)
Oil on canvas painting of a docked navy ship with sailors on shore.
Hand signed lower left
Measures: Canvas 19″H x 23″W; Framed 23.5″H x 28″W.

Hildegarde Hume Hamilton (1898 – 1970) was active/lived in Florida, Virginia. He is known for Impressionist buildings in landscape and coastal view painting, illustration.
Hildegard Hume Hamilton was born in Syracuse, New York, in 1898. After her education there, and brief training at the age of six in art schools in Venice, Italy, while on a European sojourn with her father, she studied fine art at the Académie Julian, the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Grande Chaumière in Paris, France, during the 1920s and 1930s.
Back in the United States, Hamilton studied for a short time at the Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis, the Cincinnati Art Academy and under the tutelage of the landscape and maritime painter Anthony Thieme (1888-1954) in Rockport, Massachusetts. The Ainslie Galleries on Fifth Avenue held an exhibit of Hamilton’s French Alpine Scenes to much acclaim. Hamilton exhibited in venues throughout the city and sold as many as 300 landscapes. In 1927, Vice President Charles Gates Dawes acquired one of Hamilton’s paintings following her one person exhibit at the Women’s National Party Headquarters in Washington D.C. In the autumn of 1928, an exhibition of her landscapes and cityscapes at the Galerie Bernheim Jeune in Paris was widely and positively reviewed. In 1929, she became the first American woman to exhibit at Philip Dillon’s club –
L’Artistique, in Provence. She also contributed to the Salon des Artistes Independants in Paris. In 1930, Hamilton exhibited at the Carlton Hotel in Washington D.C. and in New York at the Grand Central Palace, American Art Association-Anderson Galleries on 57th Street, and the Huntington Bay and Yacht Clubs. During this period, the artist resided at 9 Gramercy Park in New York City. The picturesque neighborhood inspired Hamilton’s painting entitled 4 Gramercy Park, Mayor Harper’s House, Manhattan. C. 1930. The oil painting captures the red brick façade and intricate cast iron embellishments of 4 Gramercy Park, the former home of publisher and New York City Mayor James Harper (1795- 1869). The two lamps at the foot of the steps signify the home was a mayoral residence and remain at the site to this day. Mrs. Hamilton studied at the Art Students League, New York, New York, and the Cincinnati Art Academy, Cincinnati, Ohio. Hamilton exhibited her topographical street-scenes and landscapes widely throughout the United States with shows at the Syracuse, New York, Museum of Fine Art; the University of Kentucky; the University of Georgia, and most importantly, New York City’s Society of Independent Artists from 1929 to 1933, 1938, 1939, 1943 and 1944. She also illustrated books. Hamilton’s paintings are included in the collections of Wesleyan College, She was aof a generation of American artists that included Alfred Hutty, Wayne Beam Morrell, Frank Henry Shapleigh, Jane Peterson, Henry Martin Gasser, Emil Holzhauer, Anthony Thieme, Johann Berthelsen, John Whorf.Hamilton discovered Florida sometime after 1936, the date of her first Florida painting. And while she traveled extensively after 1933, with recorded residencies in Tangiers, Tokyo, Nassau, Malta, Sicily, Portugal, England, France, Spain, the Caribbean, Bahamas, Cuba and throughout South America and Mexico, she called Ft. Lauderdale her permanent home after 1948. There, she continued to paint both European views gleaned from her notebooks and photo albums, as well as scenes of Florida including plein air views of the Tarpon River and Himmarshee Canal near Ft. Lauderdale. Hildegarde Hamilton died in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, in January of 1970, at the age of 72. Firsts for Hildegarde: Believed to be the first Woman permitted to use her palette and canvas to paint the slaves inside the “Holy of Holies” – a Turkish Harem in Istanbul, Turkey. Also, she was granted permission to paint in a Mohammedan Harem in Tangier. First woman to study at the Academia de Bellas Artes, Sevilla, Spain. First woman allowed to paint in the Royal Gardens at Seville. Public and Private Collections (a Partial listing) Eaton Gallery, New York City Hall of Art, New York City Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Virginia Vice President Charles Gates Dawes The Allen Collection, Florida Sir Bede Clifford, Governor of the Bahamas Governor and Lady Grey, Nassau, Bahamas Sir Robert Neville, Governor of the Bahamas Indian Students Club, Darwin’s House, London American Church of Paris Societe des Beaux Arts, Paris Rudyard Kipling, English Novelist and poet, 1865-1936