catalog text
JAMES HAMILTON
American, 1819-1878
A Luminous Mountain Range
Oil on canvas | Signed lower left "J. Hamilton"
Item # 103PLQ27W
A rich landscape of the golden hour created by a setting sun with rays glowing through the wispy clouds of the horizon, it is distinctly luminous with an unusual pastel quality to the palette. Like an impressionistic sketch, Hamilton's brushwork is feverish and emphatic with layer after layer of color worked into the surface to create hints of hollows and planes, trees and rocks. Every element in the painting works to center the eye on the focal point, the sun and its position directly above the cliffs with their brilliant emerald grasses at the base along the still waters of the lake. It is signed in his typical script lower left "J. Hamilton".
Born in Entrien, Ireland on October 1st of 1819, James Hamilton was brought to the United States with his parents at the age of 15, settling together as a family in Philadelphia. By around 1840, he had established himself as a teacher of drawing in Philadelphia after being encouraged by John Sartain and others to pursue an artistic career. He exhibited first at the Artists' Fund Society in 1840, following that exhibition with numerous other galleries in Philadelphia, New York City, Baltimore, Boston and Washington. He exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts every year from 1840 through 1869, missing only two years of the nearly thirty year stretch (1846 and 1852) and in total offering 222 paintings.
After living in London from 1854 through 1855, he returned to Philadelphia and was shortly thereafter commissioned to illustrate both Arctic Explorations by Kane and Memoirs by Fremont. These cemented his reputation as an illustrator, a role that he became very well-known for throughout the rest of his career. He died on March 10th of 1878 in San Francisco while on a trip around the world.
His paintings are treasured in public collections throughout the United States, including the Brooklyn Museum of Art where seven paintings are held in their permanent collection. They can be found in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan in New York, the Oakland Museum in California, Wadsworth Atheneum in Connecticut, Yale University Art Collection, the Delaware Art Museum, the Seneca Falls Historical Society in New York, the Butler Institute of Art in Ohio, the Allentown Art Museum in Pennsylvania, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, CIGNA Museum and Art Collection in Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Reading Public Museum and Art Gallery in Pennsylvania and many more.
Artist Listings & Bibliography:
- The New York Historical Society's Dictionary of Artists in America 1564-1860, Groce, Wallace, 1979, p. 287
- Exhibition of the National Academy 1861-1900, Naylor, Kennedy Galleries, 1973, p. 389
- The Annual Exhibition Record of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts 1807-1870, Falk, 1988, p. 88-90
- E. Benezit Dictionary of Artists, Vol. VI, Gründ, 2006, p. 1089
Measurements: 23 3/4" H x 36 1/4" W [canvas]; 27 5/8" H x 39 7/8" W x 1 1/4" D [frame]
Condition Report:
Original stretcher with replaced keys. Professionally conserved (surface grime removed, old varnish removed, fresh Damar varnish applied). Old restorations, including inpainting to the edges where gesso was compromised and losses occurred but were never filled; tacking edges were removed at painting was relined at one point. Light craquelure throughout, canvas very firm and stable. Surface is a bit difficult to read under UV examination, obscured somewhat by the various varnish applications; inpainting is observed around all edges; small spots of touchup in the foliage of the lower left corner; the "pasture" at the mid-right edge appears to have some degree of overpaint. Contemporary frame with minor wear.