{{Short description|American painter (1886–1977)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=August 2024}} {{Infobox artist | honorific_prefix = | name = Esther Hamerman<!-- include middle initial, if not specified in birth_name --> | honorific_suffix = | image = <!-- just the pagename, without the File:/Image: prefix or brackets --> | image_size = | alt = | caption = | native_name = | native_name_lang = | birth_name = Esther Wachsmann<ref name=SAAM1/><!-- only use if different than name --> | birth_date = September 21, 1886<ref name=SAAM1>{{cite web|title=Esther Hamerman|url=http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artist/?id=6038|website=Smithsonian American Art Museum|publisher=Smithsonian Institution|accessdate=24 December 2015}}</ref><!-- {{Birth date and age|YYYY|MM|DD}} for living artists, {{Birth date|YYYY|MM|DD}} for dead. For living people supply only the year unless the exact date is already WIDELY published, as per WP:DOB. Treat such cases as if only the year is known, so use {{birth year and age|YYYY}} or a similar option. --> | birth_place = Wieliczka, Poland<ref name=SAAM1/> | death_date = {{Death year and age|1977|1886}}<ref name=SAAM1/><!-- {{Death date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|YYYY|MM|DD}} --> | death_place = New York City, New York, U.S.<ref name=SAAM1/> | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = <!-- {{Coord|LAT|LONG|type:landmark|display=inline}} --> | education = | alma_mater = | known_for = Painting | notable_works = | style = | movement = Folk art | spouse = | awards = <!-- {{awd|award|year|title|role|name}} (optional) --> | elected = | patrons = | memorials = | website = <!-- {{URL|Example.com}} --> | module = }} '''Esther Hamerman''' (born '''Esther Wachsmann''';<ref name=SAAM1/> 1886–1977) was a Polish-born American painter. Hamerman, who was self-taught, has been described as a "leading practitioner" of memory painting.<ref name=Newhall/> She is considered a folk artist.<ref name=Newhall/>
==Early life== Esther was born in 1886 in Wieliczka, Poland into a Jewish family.<ref name=SAAM1/><ref name="Newhall">{{cite web |last1=Newhall |first1=Edith |date=March 6, 2012 |title=All in the Family |url=http://www.artnews.com/2012/03/06/all-in-the-family/ |accessdate=24 December 2015 |website=ArtNews}}</ref> She had thirteen siblings. By the age of 18 she was married. She had four children, and the family lived in Vienna, Austria.<ref name=Newhall/>
In 1938, the family fled Vienna because of the Anschluss, the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich. For six years the family lived in a British internment camp in Trinidad.<ref name=Newhall/>
==Immigration to the United States and career==
In 1944 the Hamerman family was released from the camp and moved to New York City. Esther started painting after moving to New York City. Her daughter Helen Breger and her husband, Leonard, supported Hamerman's career and submitted a painting of hers to an exhibition at ACA Galleries. That exhibition was her "big break" into the art world.<ref name=Newhall/>
Hamerman's husband died in 1950. As a result, she relocated with her daughter and son-in-law to San Francisco, where she continued to paint.<ref name=Newhall/> She lived in San Francisco for 12 years.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wertkin |first=Gerard C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iXecfgS0CY8C&pg=PT589 |title=Encyclopedia of American Folk Art |date=2004-08-02 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-95614-1 |pages=589 |language=en}}</ref>
==Later life==
She moved back to New York City in 1963, where she lived with her other daughter, Nadja Merino-Kalfel.<ref name=Newhall/> She died in 1977 in New York City.<ref name=SAAM1/><ref name="Sellen">{{Cite book |last=Sellen |first=Betty-Carol |date=2016 |title=Self-Taught, Outsider and Folk Art: A Guide to American Artists, Locations and Resources |edition=Third |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UbSaCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT166|location=Jefferson, North Carolina |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-7585-8|page=166 |language=en}}</ref>
Her great-granddaughter is artist Nicole Eisenman.<ref name="Newhall" />
==Collections== *"Untitled (East River)", after 1950, oil on canvas; Smithsonian American Art Museum<ref name=SAAM2>{{cite web|title=Untitled (East River)|url=http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=32842|website=Smithsonian American Art Museum|publisher=Smithsonian Institution|accessdate=24 December 2015}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamerman, Esther}} Category:1886 births Category:1977 deaths Category:20th-century American women painters Category:20th-century Polish women painters Category:Painters from New York City Category:People from Wieliczka Category:Jewish women painters Category:Jewish American painters Category:Jewish emigrants from Austria after the Anschluss to the United States Category:Emigrants from Austria after the Anschluss to the United States Category:Jewish Polish artists Category:20th-century Polish painters