Gallery

Thomas Hill came to Taunton, Massachusetts, from England in 1841. He studied art with Rothermel at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1853, and took first prize at the Maryland Institute in Baltimore that year. He also received instruction from P. Meyerheim in Paris during 1866. However, Hill was primarily self-taught. He worked as a carriage painter in the 1840s. He worked in San Francisco during the years 1861 to 1866 and 1871 to 1908. He was in Boston during the years 1867 to 1871. Hill often traveled to New England in late 1870s and early 1880s.

Hill exhibited at the following: Art Union, San Francisco, 1865 (prize); Centennial Expo, Philadelphia, 1876 (medal); Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1884 (medal). During his career, he received 31 awards. His work has been preserved at the Denver Art Museum, the California Capitol, the Los Angeles Museum of Art, the Worcester Museum of Art, the University of Kansas Museum of Art, the Oakland Museum of Art, and the Currier Museum of Art. He helped V. Williams found the San Francisco School of Design in 1874. He was commissioned by Muir to paint in Alaska in 1887. He produced nineteen illustrations for Muir’s “Picturesque California” in 1888. Thomas Hill was a member of the Boston Art Club and the San Francisco Art Association.

Hill is best known for his majestic landscapes of California, especially Yosemite. His brother, Edward Hill, painted throughout his life in the White Mountains, but remained in the shadow of his famous brother, Thomas.

During 1883 and 1884, Hill built a Victorian-style home with an art studio on the grounds of the Wawona Hotel. Following a period of declining health and shifting fortunes, he died on June 30, 1908 in Raymond, CA. Hill is buried at the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, CA.

Obituary From Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Honolulu, HI / Thursday, July 2, 1908 / Page 1 / NOTED ARTIST DEAD

SAN FRANCISCO, July 1. – Thomas Hill, the noted artist, is dead. Thomas Hill was a native of Birmingham, England, and would have been seventy-nine years old September 11 next. He was a direct descendant of Sir Rowland Hill, founder of penny postage. His family came to the United States in 1840, and settled in Taunton, Massachusetts. Hill studied in the Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia. In 1861-6 he was a portrait painter in San Francisco. He later studied under Meyerheim in Paris. Many notable landscapes of the Pacific Coast came from his brush, and he was the winner of many prizes at great art exhibitions.

lmages of Thomas Hill

Gravestone

 

 

 

 

 

Signatures

References
Direct from Nature. The Oil Sketches of Thomas Hill.
Independent research by the authors