Education
He studied painting and illustration at the Chicago Art Institute and travelled to Paris where he found work in a number of studios.
He studied painting and illustration at the Chicago Art Institute and travelled to Paris where he found work in a number of studios.
Born John Hiller, he changed his name to Lejaren à Hiller when he moved from Milwaukee to New York City. By the early 1900s his attention turned to photography and he was widely regarded as the "creator of American photographic illustration". Hiller was known for dramatically staged tableaux.
He would spend considerable time and effort in arranging the set and models, while an assistant took the photograph, making Hiller"s contribution more directorial than photographic.
If he"s doing it awkwardly, or not the way I"d do it, all right -- it"s a good job so long as he gets her into the sink, completely strangled."
From 1927-1950 Hiller was commissioned by Davis & Geck to produce the prints for a series of historic advertisements entitled “Sutures in Ancient Surgery,” and published in 1944 as “Surgery through the Ages”. Hiller used elaborate costumes, dramatic backdrops and lighting, and had half-clad models posing as patients.
The images depicted a broad range from mediaeval and Aztec surgeons, to surgeons from ancient Egypt and India. The originals of this series were donated to the Art Institute of Chicago.
Hiller also created a series of photographic posters for the United States Armed Forces during World World War World War II