Gene and Carlie Hamilton have been a husband-wife artist team since the mid-seventies. They have two children, William, born in 1976, and Sarah, who was born in 1978.

Following Gene's four years of active duty in the U.S. Navy, the Hamiltons met while both were attending Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where Gene received a BFA, and where Carlie was doing graduate work after receiving a BFA from Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois. They also earned teaching certificates in art.

Carlie is originally from the Chicago area. A great uncle of Carlie's, Mr. Fred Oswald, was a professor of art at The Chicago Art Institute, where one student went on to achieve a good deal of artistic fame: Thomas Hart Benton. And speaking of historical tidbits, on Carlie's side- her maternal grandmother attended high school with Ernest Hemmingway, who not only signed her grandmother's yearbook, but illustrated it as well- with a personalized drawing.

Gene's heritage includes Italian roots: his mother was a war bride from Naples, Italy.

The Hamiltons have been featured in several national publications, including The Artist's Magazine and American Artist Magazine. They were also featured in a l980 issue of The Iowan Magazine.

For many years Gene would travel with another artist, Larry Stark, who taught Gene the skills of silkscreen printing. Together they would show their art to dealers, consultants and museums all across the U.S., while living in Larry's various run-down vans. This was a lifestyle Gene remembers as being the basis for "paying his dues" in the art world!

Carlie formerly produced a series of paintings and prints with food as the subject. These included vegetables, but also included fun food such as donuts and pies. For the past many years Carlie has focused on flowers as her visual theme. She has painted scenes of the American flower garden and has also produced lovely botanical paintings, for which she has done extensive research as to the exact appearance and nature of the wildflowers she depicts.

Her work is representational and is done in an acrylic wash method which by nearly every viewer is mistakingly assumed to be in the watercolor medium.

Gene and Carlie worked together in the late seventies and through the eighties to make dozens of editions of serigraphs, -also correctly called "silkscreen prints", in addition to their paintings.

Gene's early works were quite different from his current tranquil subjects. His one-person show at The Des Moines Art Center in 1978 consisted of "Hamilton Trout" art in various media. These art pieces were brightly colored strings of sculptural fish, and paintings of fish, as well as depictions of fishermen holding trophy fish, and other fish-related themes. He also produced shock art, social commentary, and humorous art.

Using his in-laws' large lake home as a studio, Gene has made paintings and prints over the years which depict life at the lake. For a few years in the seventies, Carlie and Gene held art shows at the Green Lake, Wisconsin house which once had U.S. President William Taft as a summertime guest. Visitors to these shows would often come by boat across the large lake and tie-up to the pier, select a painting, and sail back across the lake!

Gene is currently doing cartoons and caricatures for individuals and companies as well as teaching watercolor and cartooning.

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