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Elaine was the daughter of Robert Bruce and Lee (née Wood) Hamilton and was raised at "Emerald Hill", a family estate in Daniels, along the Patapsco River, just north of Ellicott City. During the summers, the family decamped to the nearby Patapsco Valley State Park, sleeping on straw beds under canvas shelters and hiking to Orange Grove for weekly supplies.
Elaine was the daughter of Robert Bruce and Lee (née Wood) Hamilton and was raised at "Emerald Hill", a family estate in Daniels, along the Patapsco River, just north of Ellicott City. During the summers, the family decamped to the nearby Patapsco Valley State Park, sleeping on straw beds under canvas shelters and hiking to Orange Grove for weekly supplies.


Hamilton met Bill O'Neal, an engineer for the Glenn L. Martin Company, at a dinner at the Baltimore Country Club in [[1942]]. They undertook to marry with the expectation that they would not produce children and would each pursue their individual lives and careers to the fullest, even spending most of their time apart. She graduated from the Maryland Institute in [[1945]] and then spent two years studying at the Art Students League in New York City with Robert Brackman. In [[1949]] she enrolled at the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico City, where she was mentored by Diego Rivera. She was commissioned to paint a large-scale mural at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende. She was honored with a solo exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art in [[1951]].
Hamilton met Bill O'Neal, an engineer for the Glenn L. Martin Company, at a dinner at the Baltimore Country Club in [[1942]]. They undertook to marry with the expectation that they would not produce children and would each pursue their individual lives and careers to the fullest, even spending most of their time apart. She graduated from the Maryland Institute in [[1945]] and then spent two years studying at the Art Students League in New York City with portraitist Robert Brackman. In [[1949]] she enrolled at the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico City, where she was mentored by Diego Rivera and briefly trained as a matador. She was commissioned to paint a large-scale mural at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende. She was honored with a solo exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art in [[1951]].


In [[1952]], after O'Neal took a job at Hayes in [[Birmingham]], the couple purchased the "[[Old Mill]]" on [[Shades Creek]] in the [[Mountain Brook Estates]] section of [[Mountain Brook]]. That same year, Hamilton attended the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, Italy on a Fulbright Scholarship. She extended her stay to an 8-year residency, with exhibitions in Rome and Milan, and at the Venice Biennale.  
In [[1952]], after O'Neal took a job at Hayes in [[Birmingham]], the couple purchased the "[[Old Mill]]" on [[Shades Creek]] in the [[Mountain Brook Estates]] section of [[Mountain Brook]]. That same year, Hamilton attended the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, Italy on a Fulbright Scholarship.


In the early 1960s, Hamilton moved to Paris while O'Neal stayed in Mountain Brook. She also began making annual visits to the Himalayan mountains, "to see where the earth and the sky touched." She was hosted by the ruling Namgyal family in Sikkim and began to practice Buddhism.
She extended her stay to an 8-year residency, with exhibitions of her increasingly abstract paintings in Rome and Milan, and at the Venice Biennale. In the early 1960s, Hamilton moved to Paris, and also began making annual visits to the Himalayan mountains, "to see where the earth and the sky touched." She was hosted by the ruling Namgyal family in Sikkim and began to practice Buddhist meditation. She was also a frequent visitor in Pakistan where she was given a solo exhibition at the Pakistan Arts Council in Karachi and inspired a new interest in abstract art as a means of "universal expression" in that country.


She purchased a French chateau in [[1971]]. Hamilton hosted dinners and parties at the mill when she was in Birmingham, and threw elaborate gatherings for her husband when he and his friends visited France.
Back in France, Hamilton translated her experiences in the Himalayas, and her meditations, into large-scale "action paintings". She was championed by influential critic Michel Tapié, a co-founder of the International Center of Aesthetic Research in Turin, Italy, who showed her work in exhibitions around the world. She purchased a 42-room chateau outside Paris in [[1971]] and filled it with art and antiques.


<!--==Professional background==
Throughout her career, Hamilton hosted dinners and parties at the mill when she was in Birmingham, and threw elaborate gatherings for her husband when he and his friends visited her. In [[2002]], occasioned by their 60th anniversary, she and O'Neal made plans to retire together to Maryland. He sold the Old Mill to appreciative neighbors, but collapsed during a medical check-up and died soon before making the move. She settled in a French-styled country house in Granite, Maryland, which she furnished with her European antiques, animal hides, Himalayan textiles, and a full-scale gilded Buddhist altar.
Stylistically, Hamilton passed through a number of stages. Her work evolved from realistic portraiture in the 1940s to pure [[abstract art|abstraction]] in the 1960s and thereafter. Having won the prize for portrait painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1945, it was natural that she went on to study in New York with [[Robert Brackman]], who is a master of realistic [[portrait painting|portraitures]] and other [[Figurative art|figurative]] painting.


In the late 1940s to early 1950s, the influence of Diego Rivera is evident in the earthy textures and colors, as well as in the heavy, sculpted, quasi-[[cubist]] forms of her increasingly abstract paintings (see right). Meanwhile, the scale of her work increased, also as a result of her study with Rivera.<ref name="marylandartsource1"/>
Hamilton died in [[2010]].
 
In the early 1950s there are other canvases that show nightmarish, contorted, bloody-looking images suggestive of slaughter, but unidentifiable bodies or body parts, somewhat in the manner of [[Francis Bacon (painter)|Francis Bacon]]. One painting shows a man with massive hands folded on his knees. Others, in a transitional stage of her work, are broken into planes, cubist-style. A painting from Mexico, which she says is the dead child of her maid, is a shadowy face, surrounded by leaves and swirls in deep shades of crimson.
 
During the 1950s and 1960s, Hamilton exhibited her paintings throughout Italy at the Venice Biennale, Rome, and Milan, as well as the [[Uffizi|Uffizi Gallery]] in Florence. She also exhibited at the [[Pakistan Arts Council]] in Karachi. Seven years later, she found herself drawn to the [[Himalayas]]. In 1956 and again in 1958, Hamilton was an invited exhibitor at the Venice Biennale. During her extensive travels in the 1950s, she remained prominent in the Baltimore [[contemporary art]] scene, winning the Popular Prize in the Baltimore Museum of Art's Maryland Artists Exhibition in 1952 and again in 1959.
 
Hamilton had solo exhibitions of her work in major galleries and museums all over the world. The various cities that exhibited her work includes Rome; Milan; [[Turin, Italy]]; [[Florence, Italy]]; Mexico City; Osaka; Tokyo; and [[Karachi, Pakistan]]. She was featured in numerous multi-artist exhibitions in these cities as well as in Paris, the [[Whitney Museum]] in New York City, and the [[Corcoran Gallery]] in Washington, DC.
 
Around 1960, she took up a personal approach to action painting and it is for her paintings in this later, [[Abstract expressionism|abstract expressionist]] manner that she is probably best known. She is sometimes classed as a [[Lyrical Abstraction|lyrical abstractionist]]. In 1968, she won first prize in the Biennale de Menton in France.
 
As Hamilton's presence in the art world continued to grow, visual art students looked to her for inspiration. Her influence extends across Europe and around the world. One individual in particular was a young Pakistani artist, named [[Ismail Gulgee]] (or Guljee, as it is sometimes spelled). Partha Mitter wrote of Hamilton's influence in her book, ''[[Indian Art]]'', published by the [[Oxford University Press]]. "Impressed by the visiting American painter Elaine Hamilton, Guljee enthusiastically plunged into action painting..."<ref>Mitter, Partha. ''Indian art (Oxford History of Art),'' Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 214, {{ISBN|0-19-284221-8}}</ref> Jane Turner also wrote of Hamilton's influence on Gulgee in ''[[Grove Art Online|The Dictionary of Art]].'' "In 1960, Ismail Gulgee, known for his portraiture, began experimenting with non-objective painting (in the manner of [[Jackson Pollock]]) after working with visiting American artist, Elaine Hamilton."<ref>Turner, Jane (editor). ''The Dictionary of Art,'' New York: Grove, 1996, p. 799. {{ISBN|978-0-333-77102-0}}</ref>
According to David L. Craven, Distinguished Professor of Art History at the [[University of New Mexico]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.unm.edu/~artdept2/faculty/craven.htm |title=David L. Craven Biography |publisher=Unm.edu |accessdate=2010-07-05 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100527234635/http://www.unm.edu/~artdept2/faculty/craven.htm |archivedate=May 27, 2010 }}</ref> Hamilton became something of an ambassador in [[South Asia]]: "Abstract expressionism was promoted as a universal style in Pakistan during the 1950s by a U.S. artist named Elaine Hamilton."<ref>Craven, David. ''Abstract expressionism as cultural critique: dissent during the McCarthy period,'' Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. 23. {{ISBN|0-521-43415-7}}</ref>
 
While Hamilton was living in France, she gained the professional admiration and support of [[Michel Tapié|Michel Tapié de Céleyran]], who was a highly influential French critic and respected painter. Tapié was an early advocate of [[Lyrical Abstraction|European Abstraction Lyrique]], also known as ''[[tachisme]]'', which is generally regarded as the European equivalent of abstract expressionism. He was descended from an old, aristocratic French family; notably, he was the second cousin of the painter [[Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://books.simsreed.com/catalogues.php?catalog=ism08&stk=32996&catNo=106 |title=Sims Reed Rare Books, ''la deuxième aventure céleste de monsieur Antipyrine,'' by Tristan Tzara |publisher=Books.simsreed.com |date=1938-11-15 |accessdate=2010-07-05 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716074314/http://books.simsreed.com/catalogues.php?catalog=ism08&stk=32996&catNo=106 |archivedate=2011-07-16 }}</ref>
 
Tapié was a generous critic, championing the works of young and upcoming artists. He organized and curated scores of exhibitions of new and modern art in major cities all over the world. In 1952, Tapié was the [[curator]] of [[Jackson Pollock]]'s solo exhibition in Paris, which took place at the Studio Paul Facchetti.<ref>Tapié, Michel. ''Pollock,'' Paris: P. Facchetti, 1952. OCLC 30601793</ref>
 
The French lyrical abstractionist or ''tachiste,'' [[Georges Mathieu]] was another artist of whom Tapié was an early champion. In 1952, Tapié curated Mathieu's exhibit at the [[Stable Gallery]] in New York.<ref>Tapié, Michel; Georges Mathieu. ''The significant message of Georges Mathieu,'' New York: Stable Gallery, 1952. OCLC 79307225</ref> Mathieu studied literature and philosophy before switching to art at the age of twenty-one. After painting realistic landscapes and portraits, he developed a highly distinctive Abstract Expressionist personal style, which grew out of an emotionally driven, improvised and intuitive act of painting. He was often compared to Pollock and said of the artist, that he considered him to be the "greatest living American painter."<ref>{{cite web|author=Encyclopædia Britannica |url=http://www.artcyclopedia.com/scripts/r.pl?R854+833 |title=Jackson Pollock at the Encyclopædia Britannica Online |publisher=Artcyclopedia.com |date= |accessdate=2010-07-05}}</ref>
[[File:K2-big b.jpg|200px|left|thumb|alt=Photo of Himilayas|K2 in the Karakoram Range of the Himalayas]]
Tapié co-founded the International Center of Aesthetic Research in Turin, Italy in 1960, with architect [[Luigi Moretti]]. The Center was a facility for the study and exhibition of art, as well as for the publication and dissemination of critical, investigative, or theoretical works on art. The institution lasted until 1987, ending upon the death of Tapié.
 
In 1960, Hamilton created her first purely oil on canvas abstract painting, entitled ''Burst Beyond the Image,'' after an expedition to [[K2]] in [[Pakistan]]. This painting was Hamilton's foray into the abstract world of ''action painting,'' which dramatically records the [[Gesture|gestural]] action of painting itself. Today, the painting remains in Hamilton's personal collection.
 
In late 1960, full of inspiration after her most recent Himalayan adventure, upon her return to France, she quickly created many more of these huge "action" canvases in preparation for solo and group exhibitions in Japan. About this time, Hamilton caught the attention of Tapié and became the benefactor of his generosity when he exhibited her paintings at the Fujikawa Gallery in [[Osaka, Japan]]. The exhibit took place from April 12–18, 1961 and was presented in collaboration with the [[Gutai Group]], which was an association of [[avant-garde]] artists representative of Japan's post-war art world.<ref>Garō, Fujikawa; Michel Tapié (introduction), ''Elaine Hamilton: Exhibition of Paintings.'' Osaka, Japan: Fujikawa Gallery, April 12–18, 1961. OCLC 81011323</ref> A second showing curated by Tapié was presented at the International Center of Aesthetic Research in Turin, Italy.<ref>Tapié, Michel; Elaine Hamilton; International Center of Aesthetic Research. ''Michel Tapié presents Elaine Hamilton: [exhibition] International Center of Aesthetic Research,'' Turin, Italy, 1969. OCLC 78457310</ref>
 
The 2006, ''[[Benezit Dictionary of Artists]]'' is emphatic in its praise, stating the following of Hamilton. "A globetrotter who has scaled the heights of the Himalayas, Hamilton makes profoundly serious work. Clearly part of the movement known as 'lyrical [[gestural abstraction]]', her painting is full of verve and invention and manifests an extraordinary gift for colour and substance."<ref>Benezit, Emmanuel. ''Dictionary of Artists,'' Paris: Editions Gründ, 2006. {{ISBN|978-2-7000-3070-9}}</ref>
 
Touring her home in 2009, Martha Thomas, writer with the ''Baltimore Magazine,'' was able to view Hamilton's many works within the artist's private collection. Rather than hanging on the walls, Hamilton's earlier paintings were found resting safely stacked against them.<ref name="baltimoremagazine1"/>
[[File:Oscar Wells Memorial - Birmingham (Alabama) Museum of Art.jpg|260px|thumb|alt=Photo of Birmingham Museum of Art|Birmingham (Alabama) Museum of Art, where Hamilton's work is represented]]
Most of the paintings on display in Hamilton's lower level gallery were her later works: bright and energetic splashes of color with swirls, drips, and slashes of paint on canvases measuring six feet long and four or five feet high. A few of the canvases were round. Hamilton stated that she wanted to challenge herself and "get out of the square thing." In some, color bursts from the center like a supernova against a dark background. In others, the fury of colorful strokes completely covers the canvas.
 
Her work has been described as abstract expressionism and "action painting," but Hamilton says the Buddhist monks she knew in Tibet described it best: "It's meditation in action," she says. "That's not a contradiction. When you meditate, it doesn't mean empty. It's making space for things to come in."<ref name="baltimoremagazine1"/>
 
Hamilton sustained and developed the abstract approach to painting for the rest of her life. Today, her work is represented in the [[Birmingham Museum of Art]] in Alabama. Her oil on canvas work entitled, ''Silent Space,'' which was completed c. 1969 is part of the collection belonging to Sarfaraz Aziz, who is the director of the brokerage firm of Aziz Fidahuesin & Company in London. Other pieces remain in public and private collections in Austria, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Pakistan, Switzerland and the United States.<ref name="marylandartsource1"/>
 
==Retirement years==
In a November 2009 article written by Martha Thomas of the ''Baltimore Magazine,'' Hamilton shared her life stories and generously offered a tour of her home, personal collection of artwork, artifacts and souvenirs of a life well lived.
 
Throughout her life, Hamilton called a variety of places "home". At one time while in France, she owned a 42-room chateau, filled with fine art and antiques. She eventually downsized to the warmth of a quaint French chateau with just 18 rooms.
 
Hamilton lived in apartments in Florence and New York, in a tent at the Mount Everest base camp, and when she was in Mexico City, she was housed by the [[Rotary International|Rotary Club]] of [[Houston, Texas]]. After returning to America, Hamilton and her husband lived together in an historic, converted grist mill in Mountain Brook, southwest of Birmingham, Alabama.
 
In 2002, the couple decided to sell the Old Mill and move to Maryland, where they would live together after so many years. On the day after their 60th wedding anniversary, as the couple prepared to move, Bill went to the doctor to have his ears checked. Upon further examination, he was transferred to the hospital emergency room. He died of heart failure that day.<ref name="baltimoremagazine1"/>
 
Hamilton continued on to Maryland, as planned, to live close to her family. She described her brothers as wonderful friends, and she also had strong bonds with her nieces and nephews. "I had always told them that if they ever wanted to run away, they could run to me," says the aunt. "I was far away, and safe." She also had space for guests. "Sometimes too much space," she laughed.<ref name="baltimoremagazine1"/>
 
In 2009, Hamilton got by with just one guest room, decorated in shades of green: painted twin beds with tasseled silk spreads she had made in France, with olive green Tibetan rugs on the hardwood floors. The walls carefully held relief rubbings from tombs in Pakistan. Her travels are in the past. But evidence of a remarkable life is all around.
 
At the end of her life, Hamilton was content living in [[Granite, Maryland|Granite]], near her childhood home. To Hamilton, her eight-room home felt like a piece of France, scooped up and replanted in the Emerald Hill countryside. The home had a brick façade, with [[Palladian window]]s, and a gravel drive leading up to the front door. It was expansive with noble proportions and high, stepped tray ceilings that she designed herself in the wide, one-story "Chartreuse" style, common in southern France.<ref name="baltimoremagazine1"/>
 
A tour of her three-year-old home is a testament to a lifetime of adventure. "It's filled with souvenirs," she said. "It's a vagabond's house." She emitted a hearty bit of laughter from her small frame, her eyes sparkled behind thick glasses.<ref name="baltimoremagazine1"/>
[[File:Buddha at Surajkund.jpg|left|250px|thumb|alt=Photo of bronze statue of Buddha at the Sikkim Pavilion|Bronze statue of Buddha at the Sikkim Pavilion]]
Her Louis XV sofas dated back to 1800 century and were adorned with hand-embroidered pillows from Pakistan. The Regency fireplace mantel—heavy marble carved in scrolls, which Hamilton shipped from France—displayed a bronze cat by the sculptor [[Antoine-Louis Barye]], antique toys from India, and a pair of [[cloisonné]] vases (exported from Tibet on the back of a yak). Her dining room furniture dates to the Renaissance, the table embellished with a pair of sturdy brass candlesticks from the same period, which she bought for $200 as an art student in Florence. "They are the real thing," she notes. "A lot of people have sat in front of those."
 
Everywhere, there are rugs, many of them brightly colored in traditional Tibetan motifs and thick knotted-wool patterns of dragons, tigers, and flowers. In addition to rugs, skins from leopards and tigers—with heads intact—are draped over seats along the wall and low tables in Hamilton's meditation room, a sanctuary off the library. The room is dominated by a gilded, wood altar, running from floor to ceiling, with nooks holding various representations of the Buddha. The walls are painted according to tradition: the deep earth red around the base, moving through horizontal bands of orange and gold representing various stages of clarity, and finally a blue ceiling, signifying nirvana. "I've had this identical room in every house I've owned for the last 40 years," Hamilton says. "Everything in Buddhism is symbolic and has definite meaning." She warns: "Don't use the word décor."
 
Whether or not they can be classified as décor, photographs seem to be a fundamental feature in Hamilton's effects. If the furniture, paintings, objets d'art—and even her sacred space—are not enough evidence of her adventures, there are plenty of photos to round out the story. There is a shot of her mother, a 1920s beauty with a feather boa-trimmed neckline and thick hair piled on her head; a photo of Hamilton making her way up an icy ledge in Pakistan's Karakoram range; and a picture of a Tibetan friend who is now a nurse in Pennsylvania thanks in part to Hamilton's largesse.
 
Hamilton rushes through each story, knowing that there are so many more to tell. Perhaps suspecting a visitor's disbelief—or in most cases, awe—she flutters her hands toward the library or her bedroom and says, "Oh, I have photos of all that," promising to provide proof that her wondrous tales really happened.
 
In the gallery, which she had constructed with high ceilings and recessed lighting to showcase her large canvases, Hamilton sifts through scrapbooks and locates a spread from the May 13, 1951, edition of The Baltimore Sun Magazine, its edges yellowed and brittle. Hamilton appears on the cover, swirling a voluminous cape with the headline, "Baltimore's Lady Bullfighter." She explains: "I saw the bullfights [in Mexico] and was traumatized. They gave me migraines." Her solution? "I had to find out what it was all about," so she trained to enter the ring.
[[File:Baltimoremuseumofart.jpg|250px|left|thumb|alt=Photo of Baltimore Museum of Art|Baltimore Museum of Art on a fall morning]]
At first, she explains, bullfighters swing the cape in wide circles, but "then begin to bring the bull closer and closer," shortening the span of the red cloth. She describes the contest as a mythic challenge between strength and intellect that "equalizes life and death." Hamilton notes that she did not actually kill the bull, but she did emerge from the encounter sore and covered with bruises. "You don't even realize you're getting grazed at the time," she says, "but you come out all black and blue."
 
Returning to her scrapbook, she points out a program from a 1951 solo show at the Baltimore Museum of Art, and a magazine photo of her standing on scaffolding in Mexico City, working on a 47-foot mural she painted at the art institute in San Miguel de Allende, after assisting the muralist Diego Rivera.
 
On Monday, March 15, 2010, Elaine Hamilton O'Neal died in Woodstock, Maryland due to unknown causes. She stopped painting around 2004, due to eye problems, but otherwise remained in good health. In her latter years, she was involved in her community, through her membership in the Great Patapsco Community Association,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.gpca.net/gpcaNLmar08.pdf |title=Great Patapsco Community Association Newsletter |accessdate=2010-07-05 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110723135801/http://www.gpca.net/gpcaNLmar08.pdf |archivedate=2011-07-23 }}</ref> as well as the local art museum. She was a regular supporter of Baltimore's Walters Art Museum, where her brother Douglas serves as Vice-President of the 2009–2010 Board of Trustees. The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland is one of the finest small, privately formed art collections open to the public in the United States.


==Solo exhibitions==
==Solo exhibitions==
* Baltimore Museum of Art, 1951
* Baltimore Museum of Art, 1951
* Instituto Allende, Mexico, 1952
* Instituto Allende, Mexico, 1952
* Galleria De Arte Moderno, Mexico City, 1952<ref>Galeria "Arte moderno" (Mexico),  ''Exposicion de Elaine Hamilton O'Neal, 18 ene.-6 feb. 1952,'' Mexico: [s.n.], 1952 OCLC 78562603</ref>
* Galleria De Arte Moderno, Mexico City, 1952
* Galleria San Marco, Rome, Italy, 1954
* Galleria San Marco, Rome, Italy, 1954
* Marticks Gallery, Baltimore, 1955
* Marticks Gallery, Baltimore, 1955
* Galleria "l'Il Milione", Milan, 1958
* Galleria "l'Il Milione", Milan, 1958
* Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi, Pakistan, 1960 (Invited Artist)<ref>Hamilton, Elaine and  Manzur Qadir, A. K. Brohi, Giuseppe Marchiori. ''Elaine Hamilton : exhibition of paintings / inaugurated by Manzur Qadir, presented by The Arts Council of Pakistan, from April 24th to May 5th, 1960,'' Karachi: Arts council galleries, 1960. OCLC 39556032</ref>
* Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi, Pakistan, 1960 (Invited Artist)
* Fujikawa Gallery, Osaka, Japan, 1961
* Fujikawa Gallery, Osaka, Japan, 1961
* Minami Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, 1961<ref>Hamilton, Elaine and Minami Gallery (Tokyo, Japan). ''Elaine Hamilton,'' Tokyo: Minami Gallery, 1961. OCLC 83884181</ref>
* Minami Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, 1961
* Center of Aesthetic Research, Turin, Italy, 1967
* Center of Aesthetic Research, Turin, Italy, 1967
* Gallery 31, Birmingham, Alabama, 1968
* [[Gallery 31]], Birmingham, Alabama, 1968
* Columbus Museum, Columbus, Georgia, 1968
* Columbus Museum, Columbus, Georgia, 1968


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* Fulbright Award in Painting to Italy, 1951
* Fulbright Award in Painting to Italy, 1951
* Popular Prize, Maryland Artists Exhibition, Baltimore Museum of Art, 1959
* Popular Prize, Maryland Artists Exhibition, Baltimore Museum of Art, 1959
* First Prize, Biennale de Menton, France, 1968-->
* First Prize, Biennale de Menton, France, 1968


==References==
==References==
*
* "[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Elaine_Hamilton-O%27Neal Elaine Hamiltin-O'Neal] (December 22, 2022) Wikipedia - accessed April 25, 2023
 
==External links==
* [http://www.artnet.com/Artists/LotDetailPage.aspx?lot_id=71EEE9FEFF0207558116D93B84DDAF47 Elaine Hamilton, "Sans titre," oil on canvas, 1960, signed]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20090427184947/http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/5342976 Elaine Hamilton, Abstract Figure, oil on canvas, signed "Hamilton" lr, 34{{fraction|1|4}} × 78 in., framed.]
* [http://www.findartinfo.com/search/listprices.asp?keyword=231365 Auction record, May 2006, Paris, includes a color image]


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Latest revision as of 10:53, 25 April 2023

Elaine Hamilton-O'Neal (born October 13, 1920 in Paradise, Maryland; died March 15, 2010 in Woodstock, Maryland) was a notable abstract artist and mountain climber. She was the wife of Hayes Aircraft Corporation engineer and executive Bill O'Neal.

Elaine was the daughter of Robert Bruce and Lee (née Wood) Hamilton and was raised at "Emerald Hill", a family estate in Daniels, along the Patapsco River, just north of Ellicott City. During the summers, the family decamped to the nearby Patapsco Valley State Park, sleeping on straw beds under canvas shelters and hiking to Orange Grove for weekly supplies.

Hamilton met Bill O'Neal, an engineer for the Glenn L. Martin Company, at a dinner at the Baltimore Country Club in 1942. They undertook to marry with the expectation that they would not produce children and would each pursue their individual lives and careers to the fullest, even spending most of their time apart. She graduated from the Maryland Institute in 1945 and then spent two years studying at the Art Students League in New York City with portraitist Robert Brackman. In 1949 she enrolled at the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico City, where she was mentored by Diego Rivera and briefly trained as a matador. She was commissioned to paint a large-scale mural at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende. She was honored with a solo exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1951.

In 1952, after O'Neal took a job at Hayes in Birmingham, the couple purchased the "Old Mill" on Shades Creek in the Mountain Brook Estates section of Mountain Brook. That same year, Hamilton attended the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, Italy on a Fulbright Scholarship.

She extended her stay to an 8-year residency, with exhibitions of her increasingly abstract paintings in Rome and Milan, and at the Venice Biennale. In the early 1960s, Hamilton moved to Paris, and also began making annual visits to the Himalayan mountains, "to see where the earth and the sky touched." She was hosted by the ruling Namgyal family in Sikkim and began to practice Buddhist meditation. She was also a frequent visitor in Pakistan where she was given a solo exhibition at the Pakistan Arts Council in Karachi and inspired a new interest in abstract art as a means of "universal expression" in that country.

Back in France, Hamilton translated her experiences in the Himalayas, and her meditations, into large-scale "action paintings". She was championed by influential critic Michel Tapié, a co-founder of the International Center of Aesthetic Research in Turin, Italy, who showed her work in exhibitions around the world. She purchased a 42-room chateau outside Paris in 1971 and filled it with art and antiques.

Throughout her career, Hamilton hosted dinners and parties at the mill when she was in Birmingham, and threw elaborate gatherings for her husband when he and his friends visited her. In 2002, occasioned by their 60th anniversary, she and O'Neal made plans to retire together to Maryland. He sold the Old Mill to appreciative neighbors, but collapsed during a medical check-up and died soon before making the move. She settled in a French-styled country house in Granite, Maryland, which she furnished with her European antiques, animal hides, Himalayan textiles, and a full-scale gilded Buddhist altar.

Hamilton died in 2010.

Solo exhibitions

  • Baltimore Museum of Art, 1951
  • Instituto Allende, Mexico, 1952
  • Galleria De Arte Moderno, Mexico City, 1952
  • Galleria San Marco, Rome, Italy, 1954
  • Marticks Gallery, Baltimore, 1955
  • Galleria "l'Il Milione", Milan, 1958
  • Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi, Pakistan, 1960 (Invited Artist)
  • Fujikawa Gallery, Osaka, Japan, 1961
  • Minami Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, 1961
  • Center of Aesthetic Research, Turin, Italy, 1967
  • Gallery 31, Birmingham, Alabama, 1968
  • Columbus Museum, Columbus, Georgia, 1968

Awards

  • Portrait Prize, Maryland Institute, 1945
  • Post-Graduate Fellowship Scholarship Award from the Maryland Institute, 1946
  • First Prize, Peale Museum, 1951
  • Popular Prize Award from The Baltimore Museum of Art Exhibition, 1952
  • Mural Commission for the Instituto Allende, Mexico, 1952
  • Fulbright Award in Painting to Italy, 1951
  • Popular Prize, Maryland Artists Exhibition, Baltimore Museum of Art, 1959
  • First Prize, Biennale de Menton, France, 1968

References

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