About John Hill

  • Biography

    Born in London, England, John William Hill came to America with his family at age 7. His father, John Hill, was a well-known landscape painter, engraver, and aquatintist. John William had a career of two phases, a city topographer-engraver and then, the leading pre-Rafaelite school painter in this country. Employed by the New York Geological Survey and then by Smith Brothers in New York City, he did lithographs of cities, private residences and public buildings.

    In 1855 at age 43, he became involved with the Pre-Rafaelite movement led by Englishman, John Ruskin. This aesthetic philosophy was a turning away from academic strictures to the purity of art before Rafael--focus on the uplifting qualities of art through natural setting lan...

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