Senator Hamilton

In this portrait, Senator Eva McCall Hamilton sits at her desk on the Senate floor. She is clothed in a long sleeved, dark blue suit jacket with a high-necked white shirtwaist underneath, as well as a long black skirt. She holds several papers in her hands, as if caught in the middle of her work, and she gazes straight ahead with a content, self-confident expression. Hamilton is painted in an idealized fashion; there is an unnatural smoothness to her face, and it is hard to distinguish individual hairs from her coiffure as a whole. While artist Larry Blovits does not leave behind thick brushstrokes, his hand is present in some areas of Hamilton’s clothing and the furniture surrounding her.

Although Hamilton served in the Senate 1921-1922, this painting was completed in the 1990s. Blovits used images of Hamilton, which survive in Grand Rapids and in a rare scrapbook at the Library of Michigan, to paint her likeness. He employed contemporary painting techniques and materials to create the portrait, though he took care to paint the Senate Chamber as it would have looked back in the 1920s.