Born: 28 June 1876, Ireland
Died: 14 March 1960
Country most active: Ireland
Also known as: NA
This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Rebecca Minch and Ruth Devine. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Hamilton, Eva Henrietta (1876–1960) and Laetitia Marion (‘May’) (1878–1964), painters, were the eldest and second daughters respectively among eight surviving children of Charles Robert Hamilton (1846–1913), landowner and JP for Co. Meath, and his wife Louisa Caroline, eldest daughter of Francis Richard Brooke of Summerton, Co. Dublin and Coolgreany, Co. Wexford. Both were educated at Alexandra College, Dublin, and their early family life fostered an interest in art; they would have been familiar with the satirical drawings and watercolours of their great-grandmother Caroline Hamilton (née Tighe), while their cousin Rose Barton, an established professional artist, was a close friend of Mildred Anne Butler. Eva, born 28 June 1876, was particularly good at portraiture, and painted her younger sisters as they sat or worked in the gardens at Hamwood, the family home in Dunboyne, Co. Meath. She had a reputation among the family for being somewhat severe and domineering, but this is not reflected in the portraits she painted, which show an intuitive understanding of her sitters; indeed, she was noted for her sympathetic paintings of children. Undoubtedly she was a confident, committed painter; she entered her work for the first time with the Watercolour Society of Ireland in 1898, and showed at an exhibition of Irish painters, organised by Hugh Lane, at the Guildhall, London (1904). The same year she exhibited portraits of her sisters with the RHA.
Her father made it clear that he could not provide a dowry for all of his daughters and only one daughter, Lilly, married. Hamilton put her energy into her painting and, aged 31, joined the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art (1907) with her sister Laetitia, where they studied under William Orpen. Her portraits from this period show his influence. She painted a portrait of her mother, Louisa Hamilton, in the drawing room of the family winter residence at 40 Lower Dominick St., in an ‘Orpenesque’ style, and included his device of adding a mirror with a reflection of the sitter. Orpen had painted her mother in the same room. After further studies at the Slade School of Fine Art, London, under the tuition of Henry Tonks, her personal style evolved, and she preferred to paint more informal groupings or individual sitters against simple, less distracting backgrounds. A perfect example is a portrait (c.1925) of her sister-in-law Violet Hamilton in a cream dress, sitting in a chair. She spent some time situating the chair to achieve the right lighting effects, and the result is one of restrained, elegant beauty. She earned a living for a time copying portraits, including some by Orpen. When her father died (1913), her brother Charles inherited Hamwood and she stayed with her mother and sisters in Dominick St. until the lease expired. She and Laetitia went to Holland (1915) and that year she showed, among other works, a painting entitled ‘Amsterdam’ with the RHA. She became a member of the Society of Dublin Painters (1922). Her mother died the same year and she took over the housekeeping, which meant less time for her painting. However, she held a one-woman show (May 1925) at the society’s gallery, 7 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin, and the reviews were positive, with special mention made of her portrait of James MacManaway, Church of Ireland bishop of Clogher (1923–43), for its excellent likeness; her views of Northern Italy; and a view of a woodland, painted in the demesne of Sir Oliver Nugent near Oldcastle, Sligo. She was then living at Font Hill, Palmerston Road, Dublin, where she shared a studio with Laetitia until their mother’s death.
From 1926 she concentrated more on landscapes and often held joint exhibitions with her sister. She remained a regular exhibitor with the Society of Dublin Painters until 1951 and was elected president (1948). Her work was shown in the Watercolour Society of Ireland (1898–1950), and she entered the Oireachtas art exhibition a number of times. She exhibited in the Irish Exhibition of Living Art (1944), with two works, ‘The chestnut tree’ and ‘The beech tree’, and contributed every year to the RHA, showing in 1946 a portrait of Laetitia. Eva and her sisters Constance and Amy moved house a few times over the years but finally settled (1946) at Woodville House, Lucan, and Laetitia moved in with them. Eva Hamilton died there on 14 March 1960.