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Mary Riter Hamilton
Canadian, 1873 - 1954
Person TypeIndividual
Canadian, 1891 - 1948
BiographyOntario born & widowed at a young age, Mary Riter Hamilton undertook academic training in Paris to pursue an artist's career. Well known for her portraits & landscapes, she continually set personal challenges. One of these was painting the European battlefields just after WWI before nature softened the look of destruction. Mary eventually settled in Victoria & her lifetime of work reveals the "sincerity, elegance & restraint of the best academic form of art." //Mary Riter Hamilton studied in Toronto with Mary Hiester Reid, George Reid and Wyly Grier. She traveled to Germany and studied with Franz Skarbina in Berlin, Italy, Holland and Paris where she studied portrait painting with J. Blanche and drawing with Mereon and Gervais at the Vittie Academy. She also studied privately with Castaluchi. Two of her works were shown at the Paris Salon in 1905. She continued to travel and study in Europe, spending one year in Winnipeg, and subsequent years in Florence, Berlin, Vienna, Paris and Holland. She returned to Canada in 1911 and showed 150 paintings in Toronto. At around the same time she did a number of portraits of Native Canadians which were later exhibited in Paris. She arrived in Victoria in 1912 where she painted a series of portraits of British Columbia's lieutenant governors which are still at Government House. In 1919 she went to Europe to paint the battlefields of France and Belgium. She completed 227 canvases which were exhibited in the foyer of the Grand Opera House in Paris in 1918. She subsequently gave the paintings to the National Archives of Canada. She won the Palme AcadÚmique and was named Officer d'AcadÚmie of France in 1922. In 1925 she received a diploma and gold medal for her exhibit at the Paris Exposition Internationale. She settled in Victoria and painted many scenes and portraits until she lost her sight in 1948. There was an exhibition of her work at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1952 and a memorial exhibition in conjunction with the work of Sophie Deane-Drummond at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria in 1959. /MJ Hughes