JAMES HAMILTON is the author of the biographies Turner – A Life (Hodder and Stoughton, 1997; US, Random House, 2002), and Faraday – The Life (HarperCollins, 2002; US, Random House, 2004). He was guest curator of the exhibition Turner and the Scientists at the Tate Gallery (1998), and the author of the accompanying book published by Tate Publications. He has latterly been guest curator of Turner: The Late Sea Paintings (Clark Art Institute, Williamstown and touring to Manchester and Glasgow, 2003/04: accompanying book published by Yale University Press), Turner’s Britain (Gas Hall, Birmingham, 2003/04: accompanying book published by Merrell), Turner and Italy (National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh; Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferarra; National Museum, Budapest (2008/09); and Volcano: from Turner to Warhol (Compton Verney, 2010).
James Hamilton is University Curator and Honorary Reader at the University of Birmingham, and was the Alistair Horne Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford, 1998/99. His other books include the biographies Arthur Rackham (Pavilion, 1990) and William Heath Robinson (Pavilion, 1992), Wood Engraving and the Woodcut in Britain c1890-1990 (Barrie and Jenkins, 1994), The Sculpture of Austin Wright (Lund Humphries and the Henry Moore Foundation, 1994), Hughie O’Donoghue – Painting, Memory, Myth (Merrell, 2003), London Lights: The Minds that Moved the City that Shook the World, 1805-51 (John Murray, 2007), and Volcano: Nature and Culture (Reaktion Books, 2012)
He has lectured across the United Kingdom and in Europe and the USA on Turner, Faraday, and the culture of Victorian Britain, and has taken part in feature programmes on BBC Radio 3 and 4 and BBC television on aspects of the art of J M W Turner. He is currently writing on the business of art in the nineteenth century, to be published by Atlantic Books in 2013/14.
James Hamilton read History of Art at the University of Manchester. He began his career as Curator of Art at Portsmouth City Museums (1972-74) and Wakefield City Art Gallery (1974-76), and continued as Keeper of the Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield (1976-84), and Director of the Yorkshire Contemporary Art Group, Leeds (1984-89).