Background
Thomas Hill was born on September 11, 1829, in Birmingham, United Kingdom. He had a younger brother named Edward.
When Thomas was fifteen, the family relocated to Taunton, Massachusetts, United States.
118-128 N Broad St, Philadelphia, PA 19102, United States
Thomas Hill attended the evening classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1853 to 1854
800 Chestnut St, San Francisco, CA 94133, United States
Thomas Hill chaired the California School of Design (currently the San Francisco Art Institute) from 1886 to the summer of 1887
Thomas Hill was born on September 11, 1829, in Birmingham, United Kingdom. He had a younger brother named Edward.
When Thomas was fifteen, the family relocated to Taunton, Massachusetts, United States.
With an intention to become a history painter, Thomas Hill began to attend evening classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1853. During one year of studies, he went to the White Mountains in New Hampshire where he developed his skills sketching with the members of Hudson River School.
In 1866, Thomas Hill visited Paris where he took some lessons from an animalist Paul Friedrich Meyerheim. While there, Hill took interest in landscape painting.
The start of Thomas Hill’s career can be counted from 1861 when he came to San Francisco, California and positioned himself as a portraitist. While in the city, one of his commissions came from the Society of California Pioneers for which the artist painted ‘William Ralston Driving His Two Horse Buggy’.
A year later, in a company of the artists Willam Keith and Virgil Williams, Hill did his first trip to the Yosemite Valley and other Pacific sites. After, he exhibited the canvases he had done during the trip. Then, the artist spent some time in Europe visiting France where he got acquainted with the art of Barbizon school.
In 1871, he came back to San Francisco and co-founded the San Francisco Art Association. The artist participated at its meetings continuing his painting trips to Yosemite and to the White Mountains. It was this time when Hill worked on his first huge canvas called ‘The Yosemite Valley’. Step by step, the popularity of his scenic landscapes grew, and by the end of the decade, he earned sufficient income and the status of the most prominent landscapist in California. Hill participated at the Centennial International Exhibition of 1876 and presented his artworks at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1884.
However, the crisis of the art market the subsequent years influenced his financial state. To support himself, he came back again and again to his beloved areas to paint, the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the Californian Yosemite where he had a studio in the Wawona Hotel.
After the death of his colleague and friend Virgil Williams in 1886 who chaired the California School of Design (currently the San Francisco Art Institute), Thomas Hill accepted the invitation to preside the institution. The summer of the next year he left the post to accompany the glaciologist John Muir on his expedition to Alaska. The trip resulted in a series of paintings depicting Alaskan and Canadian coasts. The canvas of the Muir Glacier created on demand of John Muir, was regarded as one of the most important artworks of the time.
By the end of the 1890s, the interest to his artworks decreased against the backdrop of the growing popularity of modernism.
The Driving of the Last Spike
Thomas Hill
Piute Indians in Yosemite Valley
View in the Sierra Nevadas
Crawford Notch
Angler in a Forest Interior
The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone
Angler's Camp Below Nevada Falls
Piute Indians at the Gates of Yosemite
Trappers in Yosemite Mountains
Bow River Gap at Banff, on Canadian Pacific Railroad
California Redwood Trees
Mountain of the Holy Cross
Land's End
At the Foot of Bridal Veil
Falls in Yosemite
Mounting Hood Erupting
Still Life with Roses and Wine Glasses
Lake Tahoe
Chinese Man Tending Cattle
Sir Donald Peak and Selkirk Glacier, Canada
Mount Lafayette in Winter
Sugar Loaf Peak, El Dorado County
Resting by a Stream
North Dome, Yosemite Valley
View of Cascade Lake, near Tahoe
The Davidson Glacier
The Salmon Festival, Columbia River
Bridal Veil Fall, Yosemite Valley
San Diego Bay from Point Loma
Ahwahneechee - Piute Indian at Bridal Veil Falls, Yosemite
Bridal Veil Falls - Yosemite Valley
Deer in a Landscape
Mount Hood
Mount Shasta from Castle Lake at Evening
Physical Characteristics: After the series of strokes in 1896, Thomas Hill became paralyzed and couldn’t paint during the last three years of his life.
Thomas Hill married Charlotte Elizabeth Hawkes in 1851. The family had nine children, including twins. Unfortunately, they didn’t survive their infancy.
Thomas and Charlotte broke out at the beginning of the 1880s.
Hill’s son named Edward Rufus followed his father’s steps and chose a profession of an artist and often accompanied his father on his painting trips.