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Title

Fonds consists of

226 lower level description(s)

Arrangement structure

Accession

1. Mary Riter Hamilton collection [graphic material]
2. Mary Riter Hamilton collection [graphic material]

Date(s)

1916-1923

Place of creation

France

Extent

Language of material

English

Scope and content

Fonds consists of original works of art, primarily oil paintings, done by Mary Riter Hamilton in an effort to document the battlefields of Western Europe in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. Included are views in Belgium, primarily Ypres and Zillebecke, and in France, at Passchendaele, Vimy Ridge, the Somme, Cambrai, Arras, and other locations, as well as views of cemeteries, ruined villages and other sites. Also included are two pastel portraits (1916), one of Dr. Rudolph Martin Anderson, and of his wife Mae Bell Anderson (née Allstrand). Both paintings are inscribed "1:1/ Mary Riter Hamilton/ Victoria, B.C./ 1916.

Conditions of access

Terms of use

Copyright: expired. No restrictions on access or on use for publication.

Finding aid

Graphic material: Item level descriptions available on-line in MINISIS. (Electronic)

Creator / Provenance

Hamilton, Mary Riter, 1873-1954.

Additional name(s)

Anderson, Rudolph Martin, 1876-1961.
Mae Bell Allstrand, , 1883-1960.
Hamilton, Mary Riter, 1873-1954
Hamilton, Mary Riter, 1873-1954

Biography / Administrative history

Mary Riter Hamilton was born in Teeswater, Ontario in 1873 to John and Charity Riter (née Zimmerman). Her early yeas were spent in Clearwater, Manitoba where she met and married Charles W. Hamilton in 1889. Following the death of her husband in 1893, Hamilton turned to art to support herself, training in Toronto under George Agnew Reid, Mary Heister Reid and Wyly Grier. She further developed her talent by studying in Europe and working under such personalities as Jacques-Emile Blanche and Paul-Jean Gervais. In 1906 she returned to Winnipeg, thereafter moving to Victoria in 1914. After World War I, Hamilton travelled to France to paint the battlefields of Europe, a tribute to those who were killed, maimed and wounded in the Great War. She successfully exhibited her work in Europe and Canada and was officially recognized in France in 1922. In 1929, Hamilton moved to Vancouver where she remained until her death in 1954, at the age of eighty-one. She is buried in Port Arthur next to her husband Charles. MacDonald, Colin S. Dictionary of Canadian Artists, vol. 2 (Ottawa: Canadian Paperbacks), 1968.

Iavarone, Mike. "The Battlefield Art of Mary Riter Hamilton." World War I Trenches on the Web. 15 Jan. 2000. 21 Sept. 2001.

Additional information

Subject heading

1. Anderson, Rudolph Martin,
2. Mae Bell Allstrand, ,
3. Hamilton, Mary Riter,
4. Europe, Western
5. Europe de l'Ouest dans l'art.
6. World War, 1914-1918
7. Guerre mondiale, 1914-1918
8. Painting, Canadian.
9. Peinture canadienne.
10. Battlefields
11. Europe.
12. Champs de bataille

Source

Private

Related control no.

1. 1983-095 PIC
2. 1988-180 DAP

MIKAN no.

181825