Juan Hamilton, the companion of Georgia Okev’s disputed heir, dies in 79

Juan Hamilton, an ambitious artist who has enriched the last years of painter Georgia Okev as a younger, close and programming crane, but has become the subject of exciting accusations in 79 years.

His death was confirmed by complications of a hematomatic tumor several years ago, by his wife Anna Marie Hamilton.

During the past decade of Mrs. Okif’s life, no one was closer to Mr. Hamilton. When they met, he was 27 years old, who is a seized Potr, without root, recently a good specified mustache. She was young, increasing at the age of 85, which is her bohemian past, innovation and dedication to her work, which made her an embodiment of the spirit of modern art.

She is a widow without children. Mrs. Okif lived in the rural areas of New Mexico, anywhere near her relatives born in Wisconsin. Many of its visitors were strangers – young people who traveled from afar to search for a blessing and throw her aura.

Mr. Hamilton was one of this pilgrim. Their relationship will eventually set what will happen to Mrs. Okif, estimated at $ 90 million, who will be honored to her legacy. Mr. Hamilton will also determine the rest of his life, leaving him a small wealth, a profession, an artist, and memories that followed him to the deathbed.

Everything began one morning at the weekend on Labor Day in 1973. Mr. Hamilton was a practitioner of Ghost Ranch, a sprawling drug mostly owned by the Arab Church, where Mrs. Okif had her residence.

She knocked on her back door, and when she answered, he asked if she had any strange functions to do.

Mrs. Okif said she did not, and began walking away.

“Wait a minute,” I called him. “Can you help me with the shipping box packages?”

Mr. Hamilton later used to say that he traveled to Ghost Ranch, inspired by the “dream of a dream” that he came to while driving without a goal: that he would find O’keeffe, giving her one of his utensils and discovered that she was in need of a friend, which leads to a great change in life.

Initially, he did homework. In the end, he takes more personal tasks, such as cutting her food in meals and dealing with her correspondence. Sometimes he stayed with her for a short period in the evening to listen to Beethoven Piano Sonatas. They started traveling together – to Antigua, Guatemala, Morocco, New York.

He also took the roles of the editor and coordinator, as he helped produce books and opponents on Mrs. Okif and her late husband, photographer and experts Alfred Stings, who won glowing reviews, including Joan Didion and art critic Hilton Kramer.

With the encouragement of Mr. Hamilton, Mrs. Okif took water colors for the first time in decades and appeared in a documentary in 1977, the New York Times described it as “the first time that the artist agreed to the image of a movie about itself and its work.”

Inspiration went in both directions. By working in Clay and Bronze, Mr. Hamilton has crossed the pottery to abstract forms of sculpture, and gained accurate control of a lacquer method and polishing that reflects light.

In an interview with ARTNEWS in 1977, Mrs. Okif said of Mr. Hamilton, “I think something is like a pure crystal.”

The Times included two in an article in 1979 under the title “The relationship between the older woman – the microscopic man: taboo fading.” Friends said that their relationship was not sexual, but rather an extensive affectionate.

“There is a bias against us because she is an older woman,” Mr. Hamilton told People magazine.

Opponents who hoped to reach Mrs. Okif had to pass it, and his sculptures began on a large scale. Critics at the Times Grace Ghalwick and John Russell praised his abstract bronze.

In 1978, he had an offer in New York, and Idand Warhol and Johnny Mitchell attended. The same applies to the representative of Doris Bray, recently the agent of Mrs. Okev, who served Mr. Hamilton with a lawsuit accusing him of “harmful intervention” in the relationship of Mrs. Bray with Mrs. Okif.

This lawsuit was settled and two others participated in Mrs. Okif and Mrs. Bray, but the accident was a sign of the coming things. “There was a lot of jealousy, and a lot of” let’s get Juan, “a friend whose name is not revealed to the Washington Post told the Washington Post.

In 1980, Mr. Hamilton married Anna Marie (Brohourov), another pilgrim on the ghost farm, and they had two sons, Albert and Brandon. When Mrs. Okif’s health deteriorated, the family moved with her in Santa V, near the hospital. She died in 98 in 1986.

By that time, Mr. Hamilton had a power of attorney for its affairs. But after her death, something new appeared: In 1984, Codicil, with the will of Mrs. Okif, was transferred “just less than $ 40 million in the artwork of OKEEFFE” and “About $ 50 million of property” from charitable institutions to Mr. Hamilton, a lawyer in June Sberning, the daughter of Mrs. Okif’s sister at a later time.

Mrs. Sipring was one of several relatives of the accusation of Mr. Hamilton of having a “unjustified influence.” A series of bitter attacks followed. In the deposit, Catherine Clener, the last brother of Mrs. Okif, described Mr. Hamilton as “nothing but homeless.” In the biography of Roxanna Robinson, “Georgia Okev: Hayat” (1989), relatives were transferred as describing him as “Jigolo”, while the author argued that the relationship was “confused” by “greed”.

However, the Washington Post reported in 1987 that “there is no doubt that Hamilton, not the relatives, who took care of Bokifi in its last years, and that he also gave the joy of life and its purpose.”

In 1990, critic Barbara Rose wrote, “Juan Hamilton was not the lover of Georgia Okev, the son who had no.”

He was the “only person you trust”, Mrs. Rose continued, because he was ready to do what she did to her husband, Mr. Stings: heavily guarded by the integrity of the artist’s vision after the artist’s death.

In the end, Mr. Hamilton reached an agreement with his relatives, and returned to a previous version of the will and giving the family millions of dollars. He got more than twenty artworks and many of its possessions. A institution has been created to deal with many real estate affairs.

In her article, Mrs. Rose wrote that without the supervision of Mr. Hamilton, Mrs. Okev’s paintings were converted into calendars: “Everything is afraid to pass.

John Bruce Hamilton was born on December 22, 1945, in Dallas. He was known as Juan because he spent most of his childhood in Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela, where his parents, Alan Claire (Kotzmiller) Hamilton, Marshain missionaries. His father was also the school principal. His mother, Juan, took to visit the local cabinets, and began playing with Clay.

During his high school years, the family lived on the western side of Manhattan and in Glin Rock, and obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Art Studio from the Himings College, in Nebraska, and continued to study sculptures at Clairemont University, California.

After settling the will of Mrs. Okif, Mr. Hamilton bought a large drug in Honolulu and a farm in Maui. His children went to the private school. However, he put it in the art world.

“The entire story with Juan was very exciting, and I prompted people not to take him seriously,” said Ms. Hamilton, his wife, in an interview. “I think he got more and more disappointment.”

He continued to sell his own work, but he increased on the landscape his farm.

In addition to his wife and sons, he survived a sister, Elizabeth Hildworth, and two grandchildren. His first marriage, to Victoria Weber, ended in divorce.

Contrary to allegations that he was a wealthy fisherman, for decades, Mr. Hamilton’s adherence to the art and conquest he inherited from Mrs. Okif. In 2020, when he decided that he was financially necessary, he sold more than 100 elements of his group through Sotheby’s, where he recorded $ 17.2 million, according to ArtNews.

However, he refused to separate from a painting that inspired his sculptures, as well as many prints of Mr. Stieglitz and the drawings of Constantine, which was given by Mrs. Okif.

By the end of his life, Mr. Hamilton faced a walking problem. From the bed, he often had the same request, his wife said: For her to bring him the old artworks that he and Mrs. Okev have many decades ago.