John Henry Hill

John Henry Hill (1839 - 1922)

John Henry Hill was born in West Nyack, New York. He studied painting with his father, and by 1855 had become a devotee of the Ruskinian aesthetic, seeking absolute realism of natural forms. He first exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1856. In 1866 and again in 1870, Hill traveled to the West as a staff artist for a government surveying expedition headed by his friend and fellow Association member, geologist Clarence King. It was during these expeditions that he completed the collection of watercolors titled "Mountain Quartet." Hill's own works were praised by Ruskin, who told him in a letter of 1881 that he had a "very great art gift."