Satsuko Hamilton

Satsuko Hamilton was born in Nagoya, Japan, where she studied traditional flower arranging and the Tea Ceremony. As a young girl growing up in Japan, Satsuko was trained to paint designs on pottery in her parents’ ceramic factory. Her ability for composition and technical application led her to begin painting on paper and canvas. Her explorations in the field of art continued when she married George Hamilton, now a well known artist and teacher who brought her to the U. S.

Wherever Satsuko traveled, she sought out gardens studying flowers of all kinds, learning each species by its scientific name as well as its common name. She delighted in planting her yard at home with a profusion of flowers mixing them in her own combinations, continually making adjustments and moving plants from here to there. Her garden philosophy was similar to Monet’s as she planted and scattered seeds in a natural, random fashion not lined up or planted according to color. Satsuko’s acrylic paintings of gardens are painted in the same fashion as her plantings. She loved to adjust and move around the flowers and plants in her paintings as in her gardens. As many artists have done, Satsuko visited Monet’s garden and was so thrilled and moved that she sat down and cried. Color was very important to her work as she stated, “Color is to me the way sound is to a musician.”

Satsuko painted watercolors for many years becoming a member of the Watercolor Society of Oregon and the Northwest Watercolor Society. Her many exhibits included the Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA; Grants Pass Museum of Art, Bush Barn Juried Exhibit, Salem, OR; Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, WA; and the Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR. Satsuko had won the Best of Show from the Watercolor Society of Oregon, Bellevue Art Museum, Northwest Watercolor Society Traveling Show, and the Beverly Hills “Affair in the Garden”. We are sad to report that we lost Satsuko in December 2008 to a long illness.

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