Artist · 19 prints
Thomas Hill Prints
About Thomas Hill
Thomas Hill was an English-born American landscape painter, born in Birmingham, England, in 1829 and died in Raymond, California, on 30 June 1908. His family emigrated to the United States when he was fifteen. He later studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, moved to San Francisco in 1861, and in 1866 spent ten months in Europe, studying in Paris with Paul Meyerheim, who encouraged him to focus on landscape.
Hill is best known for his grand views of Yosemite, which he first visited in 1865 with the painter Virgil Williams and the photographer Carleton Watkins. His View of the Yosemite Valley (1865) was used as the backdrop at the 2009 presidential inaugural luncheon. He also painted The Driving of the Last Spike, an eight-by-twelve-foot canvas of the 1869 ceremony that completed the transcontinental railroad, with portraits of more than seventy people; it hangs in the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento. From 1884 Thomas Hill kept a studio at Wawona, near Yosemite's giant sequoias, which today serves as a visitor centre.
Thomas Hill prints: reproductions of the American landscape paintings Thomas Hill made of California and the West between the 1860s and 1890s. The collection includes Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe (1864), The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (1884), In the High Sierras (1886), Vernal Falls, Yosemite (1889) and Gates of Yosemite and Bridal Veil Falls.
This selection concentrates on Yosemite: the valley floor, its granite walls, waterfalls and still river, painted in many versions and seasons. It also includes other Western places, such as Lake Tahoe, the redwoods, the Columbia River, the Sonoma geysers and Fort Point in San Francisco. The palettes run from clear blue skies to warm autumn browns and golds.
The wide valley views suit living rooms, dining rooms and offices, and the larger landscapes work well above a sofa, bed or fireplace. All prints are museum-quality reproductions, available unframed or framed with acrylic glazing, with free shipping and import duties covered.
