7
Letitia Marion Hamilton RHA (1878-1964)
Estimate:
€5,000 - €7,000
Sold
€6,000
Live Auction
Irish & International Art
Size
16 by 18in. (40.6 by 45.7cm)
Description
Title: FAIR DAY, DUNBOYNE, COUNTY MEATH, c. 1910
Note: Letitia Hamilton, known as May to her family and friends, was born at Hamwood House, near Dunboyne Co. Meath and was the younger sister of Eva H. Hamilton and a cousin of Rose Barton. Described by Hilary Pyle as a typical 'horse Protestant', she enjoyed a privileged start in life: educated at Alexandra College. She studied art under Orpen at the Dublin Metropolitan School, partly, no doubt, through the influence of her elder cousin Rose, then an established professional artist. In Belgium she studied with Sir Frank Brangwyn; further study ensued at the Slade in London. She began exhibiting with the Watercolour Society of Ireland in 1902, showing mostly garden scenes in the manner of Mildred Anne Butler, a family friend.Hamilton showed her first painting at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1909 rarely missing an exhibition there for the rest of her life. In 1910 she painted in northern France and is thought to have then encountered the work of the Impressionists. She was a founder member of the Society of Dublin Painters in 1920. Her first recorded visit to the West of Ireland was in 1922, when she took a house in Sligo in order to paint. In 1929 she first showed a Connemara landscape at the RHA, but it was not until 1942 that Roundstone began to figure among her painting subjects. In that year she exhibited three Roundstone scenes at the RHA and further works followed every year or two thereafter throughout the forties and fifties.She held an exhibition with her sister in 1924 in Dublin showing scenes of Venice where she was later to have a studio. She travelled extensively and was rather unusual as an artist-traveller in the fact that she rarely used pencil or watercolour or any other light, easily transportable media, opting instead for the more cumbersome canvas and oil paint. In her later work she used an increasingly thick impasto applying the paint with a palette knife. She was appointed an associate of the RHA in 1934 becoming a full member ten years later.
Frame size: 21.5 by 23.5in. (54.6 by 59.7cm)
Note: Letitia Hamilton, known as May to her family and friends, was born at Hamwood House, near Dunboyne Co. Meath and was the younger sister of Eva H. Hamilton and a cousin of Rose Barton. Described by Hilary Pyle as a typical 'horse Protestant', she enjoyed a privileged start in life: educated at Alexandra College. She studied art under Orpen at the Dublin Metropolitan School, partly, no doubt, through the influence of her elder cousin Rose, then an established professional artist. In Belgium she studied with Sir Frank Brangwyn; further study ensued at the Slade in London. She began exhibiting with the Watercolour Society of Ireland in 1902, showing mostly garden scenes in the manner of Mildred Anne Butler, a family friend.Hamilton showed her first painting at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1909 rarely missing an exhibition there for the rest of her life. In 1910 she painted in northern France and is thought to have then encountered the work of the Impressionists. She was a founder member of the Society of Dublin Painters in 1920. Her first recorded visit to the West of Ireland was in 1922, when she took a house in Sligo in order to paint. In 1929 she first showed a Connemara landscape at the RHA, but it was not until 1942 that Roundstone began to figure among her painting subjects. In that year she exhibited three Roundstone scenes at the RHA and further works followed every year or two thereafter throughout the forties and fifties.She held an exhibition with her sister in 1924 in Dublin showing scenes of Venice where she was later to have a studio. She travelled extensively and was rather unusual as an artist-traveller in the fact that she rarely used pencil or watercolour or any other light, easily transportable media, opting instead for the more cumbersome canvas and oil paint. In her later work she used an increasingly thick impasto applying the paint with a palette knife. She was appointed an associate of the RHA in 1934 becoming a full member ten years later.
Frame size: 21.5 by 23.5in. (54.6 by 59.7cm)
Condition
Some surface dirt visible. Otherwise good condition.
Medium
oil on canvas
Signature
indistinctly signed lower right
