John McLure Hamilton was an Anglo-American artist. He was born in Philadelphia and began his art education at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, under Thomas Eakins. Later he travelled to Europe and continued his education at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and at the Royal Academy in Belgium. Hamilton was noted for portraits, figure paintings and illustrations. While maintaining a permanent address in Philadelphia, he lived in England for fifty-eight years where he was official portrait painter to William Ewart Gladstone, prime minister of the United Kingdom.

In addition to Gladstone, Hamilton painted portraits of many English notables including Cardinal Manning, George Meredith and Richard Vaux. He was the author of a book, Men I Have Painted.

Hamilton was a member of the American Federation of Arts, the Philadelphia Water Color Club, the Pastel Society, the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and the Senefelder Club, London. His portraits are found in the following galleries; Luxembourg Museum, Paris, (which is devoted to artists foreign to France), the National Portrait Gallery, London and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, which awarded him its Gold Medal of Honor in 1918.