Direct From Nature
The Oil Sketches of Thomas Hill
June 20, - August 16, 1997

Direct from Nature: The Oil Sketches of Thomas Hill attests to the breadth of Hill's interests and the importance of the artist's small-scale paintings in understanding his achievements. The exhibition was organized by the Crocket Art Museum, Sacramento, and made possible by the enthusiasm, knowledge, and support of many people. Particular appreciation is extended to the many lenders, who have generously shared works from their collections. Dr. William H. Gerdts and the Yosemite Association are thanked for their important contributions to the accompanying book. The California Historical Society presentation was made possible through the generosity of The Bernard Osher Foundation, Dr. A. Jess Shenson, Sarah and Stephen Taber, and an anonymous Donor.

One of California's finest 19th-century landscape painters, Thomas Hill (1829-1908) is little known outside of California today. In his own time, however, Hill was favorably compared with Albert Bierstadt in the East (on his return to the United States from Europe in 1867) and won a gold medal at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia.

Thomas Hill is generally associated with monumental paintings of Yosemite or his The Driving of the Last Spike. However, his small paintings of Newport, Rhode Island, the White Mountains, Mount Shasta and Lake Tahoe in California, and the Pacific Northwest, and other subjects are among his finest achievements. Created outdoors, in front of their subjects, these "oil sketches" attest to Hill's powers of observation, capable technique, and enchantment with his motifs.

These modest paintings (generally under 16 x 20", and often on paper or board) comprised a significant portion of Thomas Hill's work from the early 1870s onward. Often highly detailed, they were apparently created along with and in nearly equal number to his larger paintings. Many are signed, indicating Hill regarded them as independent, fully-realized compositions. However, he also used oil sketches as models for illustrations in other media and for larger canvases. By the mid-1870's, his practice of departing San Francisco to make studies from nature and returning with oil sketches to use in the studio was common among California artists.The State's magnificent landscape and hospitable climate, as well as the enthusiastic reception that outdoors studies received in the local press encouraged the production of oil sketches.

Born in Birmingham, England, Thomas Hill immigrated to Massachusetts with his family in 1844. The son of a poor tailor, Hill worked briefly in a cotton factory, then was apprenticed to a carriage painter. He joined an interior decoration firm in Boston in 1847, and by 1851 had married and fathered the first of nine children who lived to adulthood.

In 1853, Hill enrolled in evening art classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. The following year he began visiting the White Mountains to paint landscapes, but he was unable to devote significant time to his artwork prior to taking up residence in San Francisco in 1861. Although Hill advertised as a portrait painter, he exhibited Sierra and Napa scenes as early as 1864. In 1865, Hill made his first documented trip to Yosemite. Although his paintings of its awesome landscape were well received, Hill left California in early 1866, traveling to the East Coast, then Paris. In France, he studied with Paul Meyerheim, and visited the art galleries at the Universelle Exposition, which opened in April 1867. By late spring he returned to the United States, settling in Boston and proceeding to produce the first of his highly praised monumental views of Yosemite Valley. Despite the attention these were accorded in the East, Hill's two major"exhibition-size" (or 6 x 10') Yosemite canvases were both purchased by Californians -- Charles and E. B. Crocker. Motivated by unsteady health and a lackluster art market in the East, Hill moved permanently to California in 1872.

Hill was hailed upon his return to San Francisco, with one newspaper noting "he has come here panoplied so royally, that we who knew him in the years gone, among his portraits, scarcely recognize him now:' By his presence and his participation in the San Francisco Art Association, Bohemian Club, and other organizations, Hill offered leadership at a time when Northern California was becoming established as a major regional art center. At the same time, he sought to maintain his national reputation while residing far from eastern art centers.

Throughout the 1870s Hill's paintings -- both large and small -- were regularly featured in exhibitions and the press in San Francisco, New York, and Boston. His summer sketching sojourns took him throughout Northern California, as well as to the White Mountains and Atlantic coast. Despite his exhibitions and the numerous commissions Hill received from San Francisco's business elite, as early as 1874 he began offering large number of paintings -- many of which were oil sketches -- at auctions. These sales met with mixed success as San Francisco's economy deteriorated during the late 1870s. Hill engaged in business ventures, becoming the proprietor of an art gallery and realizing significant income from investments the stock market.

In 1879, Hill returned to Yosemite after several years to record new Sierra scenes for patrons. Soon thereafter, he moved his studio from San Francisco to his large home in Oakland. After 1882, however, Thomas Hill spent considerable time in Yosemite Valley, where he constructed a studio (which was promptly demolished by a storm). After his daughter's marriage to John Washburn in 1885 his principle residence was at Wawona. Hill continued to travel -- to the East Coast, Oregon, and Alaska -- and enjoyed accommodations at San Francisco s Palace Hotel and the Coronado in San Diego in the late 1880s and 1890s. However, his paintings were increasingly of Yosemite subjects that appealed to tourists in California. Although Hill continued to develop new Yosemite views, his mature style had been formulated many years before. Hill's late oil sketches of Alaska testify that his capabilities had not diminished; however, they incorporate stylistic approaches Hill had developed many years before to depict California's impressive landscape in both large and small format compositions.

Janice T. Driesbach
Curator