Dowling unnamed
Robert Hamilton, “Paper Moon.”

One of the most idiosyncratic artists of post-War American art, Robert Hamilton (1917-2004) taught painting and drawing at the Rhode Island School of Design for 34years. Yvonne Jacquette, Richard Merkin, George Lloyd and Dean Richardson were some of his many students. For Hamilton, who flew over 100 missions in WW II as a P-47 fighter pilot, earning him the Distinguished Flying Cross, the picture plane was a stage for depicting invented narratives brimming with humor, pathos, and an unquenchable zest for life. His experiences during the war profoundly influenced the imagery in his paintings, which often feature figures from history and from art, bon vivant characters and animals, blithely enjoying life and defying the inevitability of death.

In his characteristic make-do fashion, Hamilton mostly used house paint from the local hardware store, stretching his own canvases or more often working on Masonite panels. He fabricated and painted his own bespoke frames, adding a Baroque, old-world flair to his dreamlike compositions. In 1974, he was artist-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome. In the late 1970s, he withdrew from the art world, choosing to exhibit his work primarily at The Octagon, an eight-sided gallery he built on his property in Port Clyde, Maine, where he and his family had spent summers since the 1950s, and where he lived full-time after retiring from RISD in 1981.

Downling Scott Kelley
Scott Kelley, “The Sea Hates A Coward.”

Also on view is “The Shipping Forecast,” which brings together a group of paintings and works on paper inspired by the sea and coastal environment. The centerpiece of the show is Scott Kelley’s dramatic three-dimensional assemblages depicting hand-drawn ink-on-paper ocean waves, collectively titled “The Shipping Forecast,” after the iconic BBC Radio weather broadcast for the seas around the British Isles, which dates back over 150 years — an indispensable aid to sailors.

Also included in the exhibition are works by Bo Bartlett, Connie Hayes, Wolf Kahn, Stephen Pace, Emilie Stark-Menneg and Greta Van Campen.

Dowling Walsh Gallery is at 365 Main St. in Rockland. The gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and by appointment on Sundays and Mondays. Visit www.dowlingwalsh.com, or call 207-596-0084 for more information.