Background
John Hill was born in 1770 in England, United Kingdom.
(The checklist of Engravings describes 161 prints of which...)
The checklist of Engravings describes 161 prints of which 40 are illustrated. An additional 11 prints not by Hill but colored by him are described. 10 original drawings by Hill are described, of which 2 are illustrated.
https://www.amazon.com/checklist-American-engravings-John-1770-1850/dp/B0007DXCI2?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B0007DXCI2
John Hill was born in 1770 in England, United Kingdom.
Hill made his mark as an engraver in aquatint in London, his birthplace, where his best plates were executed after paintings by Turner and Loutherbourg. He was forty-six when, in the summer of 1816, he emigrated to America and settled in Philadelphia.
He arrived opportunely in the young Republic, for art, which until after the Revolution was closely associated with portrait-making, was just beginning to take cognizance of the New World's wealth in natural beauty, and the first signs were showing of a developing landscape school and of a vogue for reproductions. Here was scope for the aquatint engraver. Hill's work, together with that of his compatriot, W. J. Bennett, who came at about the same time, marked, according to Weitenkampf, the culmination of a short period of successful practice of aquatint in America.
Hill's earliest work in America comprises a series of small magazine plates in black-and-white, including his views of Richmond, Virginia, and York Springs, Pennsylvania. Later he engraved a series of much larger plates which he colored by hand, "Picturesque Views of American Scenery, " after paintings by Joshua Shaw. Weitenkampf notes as evidence of craftsmanship the use of a much coarser, more open grain in these plates than in the earlier series of smaller size. Known as the Landscape Album, this series was published by Carey of Philadelphia in 1820 and republished in 1835 by Thomas T. Ash of the same city. Weitenkampf calls attention to the existence of an earlier state of the engraved titlepage bearing the date 1819 and the name "Moses Thomas" in place of Carey, which would seem to indicate a transfer of publishers before the plates were issued.
Hill paid tribute to the grandeur of the "American Rhine" in a set of still larger plates entitled the Hudson River Portfolio, which he aquatinted after watercolors by W. G. Wall. The series was published in 1828 by Catlin of New York and was reissued by Henry I. Megarey. Owing to some renumbering of the plates this group has become "the despair of the collectors. "
About 1836, when the popularity of aquatinting had waned, Hill retired to a lonely upland farm on the Nyack turnpike, thirty-five miles from New York and a half mile from the village of West Nyack. Here he died fourteen years later.
(The checklist of Engravings describes 161 prints of which...)
In 1819 Hill sent for his wife, Ann (Musgrove) Hill, and his son, and soon after their arrival he removed with them to New York, which was his home for the rest of his active professional life.
His son, John William Hill--a painter as well as an engraver, and leader of the Pre-Raphaelite school in America--and later his grandson, John Henry Hill, carried on the family tradition into the twentieth century. In 1901, when Weitenkampf visited the farm-studio, the walls were hung with prints and paintings tracing the development of three generations of artists. One of Hill's grandsons was the mathematical astronomer, George W. Hill.