Thomas Hill
(1829-1908)

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Thomas Hill was an American artist known for his landscape paintings of California and New Hampshire. Hill was born in England but immigrated to the United States when he was fifteen. Hill spent much of his childhood in Massachusetts before moving to Pennsylvania to study at the Academy of Fine Arts under Peter Frederick Rothermel. As a student Hill painted with many members of the Hudson River School and made many painting trips to the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

In 1856 Hill moved to San Francisco and began his exploration of Yosemite and Mount Shasta. Hill supported himself by working at a gallery and selling art materials. For a short time he worked at the San Francisco School of Design. Hill travelled outside of California frequently, including a painting venture to Alaska commissioned by the well-known environmentalist John Muir. Hill continued to make return trips to the east to paint the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

For several years Hill kept a studio the Wawona Hotel in Yosemite where he had close proximity many of his favorite painting spots in the Yosemite Valley. Hill preferred to paint monumental subjects including the Sierra, Yosemite Valley and Vernal Falls. Hill’s most reproduced work is “The Last Spike”. The painting portrays seventy-one portraits of people involved with the First Transcontinental Railroad. Hill’s masterpiece belongs to the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, California.

Hill’s paintings belong to museums and private collections across the United States. Do you think you own a painting by Thomas Hill? Contact us. We are the Thomas Hill experts.