{"id":121144,"date":"2025-03-09T01:19:41","date_gmt":"2025-03-09T01:19:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/entertainment\/art\/juan-hamilton-protege-and-beneficiary-of-georgia-okeeffe-died-at-79\/"},"modified":"2025-03-09T01:19:41","modified_gmt":"2025-03-09T01:19:41","slug":"juan-hamilton-protege-and-beneficiary-of-georgia-okeeffe-died-at-79","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=121144","title":{"rendered":"Juan Hamilton, Prot\u00e9g\u00e9 and Beneficiary of Georgia O’Keeffe, Died at 79"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n\tJuan Hamilton<\/a>, an artist, caretaker, and prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of renowned painter Georgia O\u2019Keeffe and the sole beneficiary of her will, died in his Santa Fe, New Mexico home on February 20 at 79 years old.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe died from complications related to a subdural hematoma, which occurred several years ago, according to his wife Anna Marie Hamilton.<\/p>\n

\n\tBorn John Bruce Hamilton on December 22, 1945, in Dallas, Texas, he grew up in Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela, the child of parents Alan and Claire (Kitzmiller) Hamilton, who served as Presbyterian missionaries. During this time, he adopted the name Juan and began learning how to work with clay from local potters.<\/p>\n

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\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tHamilton lived between Manhattan\u2019s Upper West Side and Glen Rock, New Jersey in high school, and earned a bachelor\u2019s degree in studio art from Hastings College in Nebraska, and later studied sculpture at Claremont Graduate University in California.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt 27, Hamilton was a divorced potter and handyman at the sprawling Ghost Ranch property, owned by the Presbyterian Church, where 85-year-old O\u2019Keeffe resided. After knocking on the door and asking for odd jobs, she had him pack a shipping crate\u2014and thus began a decade-long, scandalous relationship.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile the nature of their relationship to one another has been debated and ultimately remains unclear, as detailed in the New York Times<\/a><\/em>, Hamilton took care of the aging artist in her final years. In exchange for his devotion, he received her $90 million estate (just under $40 million of O\u2019Keeffe\u2019s artwork and approximately $50 million in property at that time)\u00a0and became responsible for overseeing her legacy.<\/p>\n

\n\tOf course, proximity to O\u2019Keeffe also spurred Hamilton\u2019s art career as a sculptor, with a 1978 show in New York that included attendance by the likes of Andy Warhol and Joni Mitchell, as well as rave reviews by art critics Grace Glueck and John Russell. Though, that level of notoriety later faded as years past.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 1980, Hamilton married Anna Marie (Prohoroff) Erskine, who had also traveled to Ghost Ranch. Together, they had two sons Albert and Brandon. The family moved into O\u2019Keeffe\u2019s home in Santa Fe as the artist\u2019s health declined until her death at 98 years old in 1986.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere is no question that it was Hamilton, not relatives, who cared for O\u2019Keeffe in her final years, and that he also gave her life joy and purpose,\u201d the Washington Post <\/em>reported on the relationship in 1987.<\/p>\n

\n\tUltimately, Hamilton agreed to revert to an earlier version of O\u2019Keeffe\u2019s will, granting the family millions of dollars, and leaving him with more than two dozen artworks and much of her property. The\u00a0Georgia O\u2019Keeffe Foundation was established to manage the estate\u2019s affairs.<\/p>\n

\n\tThough Hamilton held on to the art and ephemera he inherited from O\u2019Keeffe for a number of decades, he ultimately sold more than 100 items<\/a> from his collection\u00a0via Sotheby\u2019s, netting $17.2 million, in 2020.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Juan Hamilton, an artist, caretaker, and prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of renowned painter Georgia O\u2019Keeffe and the sole beneficiary of her will, died in his Santa Fe, New Mexico home on February 20 at 79 years old. He died from complications related to a subdural hematoma, which occurred several years ago, according to his wife Anna Marie Hamilton. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":121145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[53458,4822,13234,53456,2049,32598,53457,15904,14054,31891],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-121144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","tag-beneficiary","tag-died","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-o-keeffe","tag-hamilton","tag-juan","tag-juan-hamilton","tag-obituary","tag-okeeffe","tag-protege"],"yoast_head":"\nJuan Hamilton, Prot\u00e9g\u00e9 and Beneficiary of Georgia O'Keeffe, Died at 79 - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=121144\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Juan Hamilton, Prot\u00e9g\u00e9 and Beneficiary of Georgia O'Keeffe, Died at 79 - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Juan Hamilton, an artist, caretaker, and prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of renowned painter Georgia O\u2019Keeffe and the sole beneficiary of her will, died in his Santa Fe, New Mexico home on February 20 at 79 years old. 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