Palden Hamilton was born in 1980 in Baltimore, and raised in Monkton MD. He was encouraged from an early age to pursue art by his parents and his Great Aunt, the abstract expressionist Elaine Hamilton O’neal (1920 –2010). He attended the Gilman School, where he studied under Betsey Heuisler. After receiving his B.F.A. from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2002, he continued his education at the Art Students League of New York, where he studied under Ron Sherr, Harvey Dinnerstein, and Mary Beth Mckenzie. There he was awarded a Merit Award in Realism and the Phylis T. Mason Grant.

Hamilton has done a range of commissioned portrait work since returning to his hometown of Baltimore. He was notably commissioned to paint Maestro Yuri Temirkanov, the musical director of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra in Russia. In 2008, 2017, and 2018, he was awarded Certificates of Excellence from the Portrait Society of America, for placing in the top 30 entries in their international portrait competition.

Hamilton has painted landscape extensively on location in his native Maryland, and on travels to his mother’s homeland, the Himalayan kingdom of Sikkim. As a landscape artist, he has participated in and received honors from Plein Air Easton, Olmsted Plein Air Invitational, Wayne Plein Air, Solomons Plein Air, and Cape Ann Plein Air.

His work was most recently featured in “The Oil Painter’s Color Handbook” (Monacelli Press, 2022), Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine’s “Five to Watch” in 2020, and Plein Air Magazine’s “11 Rising Stars to Add to Your Collection” in 2019.

Hamilton has been an art instructor for over ten years, teaching at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), the Zoll Studio School of Fine Art, Chesapeake Fine Art Studio, and others.