John Henry Hill (1839-1922)

Landscape painter, aquatintist, and etcher John Henry Hill was born in West Nyack, NY, in 1839. Grandson of John Hill and son of John William Hill, he, like they, was a follower of Ruskinian philosophy. One of the major American still-life artists of the late 19th century, he was also an accomplished landscape painter. He began exhibiting in New York City and in Philadelphia in the late 1850’s. In 1867 he published “Sketches from Nature.” He made a trip West in 1868, creating sketches, watercolors, and gouaches of scenes in Nevada, Utah, and Northern California. In 1869, he settled in Lake George, NY, and there turned his Western studies into large oil paintings. In 1888 he prepared An Artist’s Memorial to honor his father, illustrating it with his own etchings after his father’s paintings. He died in 1922.