Robert Hamilton at the Farnsworth Art Museum - Brief Article

Art in America, Jan, 2000 by Carl Little

"Robert Hamilton: A Vocabulary of Images" presented 23 oils on canvas and board dating from 1949 to 1998, with the majority painted in the past four years. Hamilton can work large, 6 by 7 feet sometimes, but he prefers easel size, at times choosing a square format. The figurative paintings can be dark, sometimes absurdist, with hints of autobiography. The artist often works in series, and certain motifs, such as a wingless toy fighter plane, recur (during World War II, Hamilton flew 100 missions as a fighter pilot). In some pieces bandaged heads evoke wounded soldiers, and inflamed skulls recall the ravages of poverty and disease.

But Hamilton's canvases more often elicit a smile. Cortez On His Way to the New World (1994) has a cartoonish, Gustonesque quality to it: the famous Spanish explorer is shown speeding along in a toy car. Many of Hamilton's scenarlos resemble sideshows at a circus or amusement park, with the action framed by symmetrical drapes. Enigmatic activities take place on these stages, and the actors' faces frequently lack features. An assortment of props--cages, beach balls, a lion, wagons--add to the big-top atmosphere.

The paint is laid down roughly and purposely left flawed; bubbled sections are common. Inspired by jazz improvisation, pictorial events often appear to materialize from the paint itself. In some pieces, the surface of board comes through, complemented by hand-painted frames. Hamilton uses housepaints, often in jarring hues, and commercial brushes.

The exhibition included 19 pen-and-ink drawings made in 1977 following a fire that destroyed the artist's studio. Fanciful in a somewhat New Yorker-ish way, these pieces offer tongue-in-cheek commentary on The Critics, ennoble the Fattest Lady on Earth and pay tribute to Bix Beiderbecke, the jazz trumpeter.

Born in Seneca, N.Y., Hamilton earned a degree from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1939 and studied at the Art Students League in 1940. After the war he returned to RISD to teach painting and drawing, retiring in 1981. He had a residency at the American Academy in Rome in 1975. Hamilton currently lives in Port Clyde, Maine. He has had one-person shows in his adopted state and in the Boston area, as well as at Cornell and the University of Illinois.