Theora Hamblett

I have discovered a new artist - Theora Hamblett. Hamblett was born in Paris, Mississippi in 1893. She taught school from 1915 to 1936 before moving to Oxford in 1939. There, Hamblett ran a boardinghouse for university students and also worked as a seamstress. It was not until 1950 that she began painting. Four years later in 1954, aprominent New York City art dealer Betty Parsons was visiting Mississippi and recognized Hamblett’s talent and successfully promoted her career. Basically a self-taught artist, she always had an interest in art and had taken a few art classes at the University of Mississippi. She developed her own pointillist technique, or using dots of vibrant color to create her compositions. Originally, Hamblett painted her childhood memories, then the Southern countryside, and later on, she painted religious and visionary works. Upon her death in 1977, she left her artwork to the University of Mississippi museums.
Theora Hamblett , one of many famous artists from Mississippi, is known for painting beautiful pictures of nature, but what made her famous is how she painted. All of her paintings are painted from a child’s point of view. A continual theme in Hamblett paintings was images of children at play. She wrote “I have so many memories of playing games under the trees when I was a young girl. When I became a teacher I still enjoyed watching children play, and often played with them.” Stylistically she used a palette of pastel colors and stylized dots of colors for the leaves on the trees.