Hamilton, George Heard

Hamilton, George Heard (1910–2004). American art historian. For most of his career he was associated with Yale University, where he studied (BA, 1932; MA, 1934; PhD, 1942) and then taught from 1936 to 1966 (he was appointed a professor in 1956). During this time he was also a curator of modern art at Yale University Art Gallery. From 1966 to 1977 he was director of the Sterling and Francine Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and from 1966 to 1975 professor of art at its sister institution, Williams College, Williamstown. He has also held distinguished temporary posts, such as the Slade professorship of fine art at Cambridge, 1971–2, and has won numerous academic awards. Hamilton's literary output is fairly small but of exceptional quality. His best-known book is Painting and Sculpture in Europe 1880–1940 (1967) in the Pelican History of Art series. This is the most authoritative and readable introduction to its subject and has been revised and reprinted several times. His other books include 19th and 20th Century Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture (1970), a shorter but more lavishly illustrated survey than his Pelican volume. Hamilton also wrote another volume in the Pelican History of Art series (a unique double for an author), The Art and Architecture of Russia (1954, and several times revised and reprinted), which covers Russian art up to about 1900. He was a friend of Marcel Duchamp and translated works by and about him.