Abby Williams Hill

{{Infobox artist

| name = Abby Williams Hill

| image = Abby Rhoda Williams Hill.jpg

| caption = Portrait of Abby Williams Hill, taken in Grinnell, Iowa.

| birth_name = Abby Rhoda Williams

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1861|09|25}}

| birth_place = Grinnell, Iowa

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1943|05|14|1861|09|25}}

| death_place = San Diego, California

| nationality = American

| spouse = Frank R. Hill

| children = 4

| field = Landscape painting

| training = Art Student's League

| movement =

| works =

| patrons =

| awards =

}}

Abby Williams Hill (1861-1943) was an American plein-air painter most known for her landscapes of the American West.{{cite book|last1=Kovinick|first1=Phil|last2=Yoshiki-Kovinick|first2=Marian|title=An encyclopedia of women artists of the American West|series=American Studies|date=January 1998|publisher=University of Texas Press|isbn= 9780292790636}} Hill also advocated for children's rights, attended the 1905 Congress of Mothers in Washington, D.C., and founded the Washington (state) Parent-Teacher Association.{{cite news|url=http://www.seattlepi.com/default/article/A-century-of-advocating-for-children-1177340.php|title=A century of advocating for children|last=Hanson|first=Linda|date=June 30, 2005|work=Seattle Post Intelligencer|accessdate=14 October 2013}}

File:Gorge in Chelan County, Washington, Cascade Range painted in 1903 by Abby Williams Hill.jpg

Early life and education

Hill was born Abby Rhoda Williams on September 25, 1861, the daughter of Henry W. and Hanett Hubbard Williams, in Grinnell, Iowa.{{cite book | title=Who's Who on the Pacific Coast | page=270 | editor=Franklin Harper | publisher=Harper Publishing Company | location=Los Angeles | date= 1913}} Early on, she received encouragement in art from her parents and later her stepmother, Mary, and instruction as a child from her aunt, Ruth Hubbard. Later, she studied with Henry F. Spread at the School of the AIC (1883). Following a teaching assignment at a girls seminary at Berthier-en-haut, Quebec (1884-1886) and a return to Grinnell, she studied art at the Art Students' League (ASL) in New York where she came to study with William Merritt Chase. In 1888, she married Frank R. Hill, a homeopathic doctor,{{cite web|url=http://www.pugetsound.edu/academics/academic-resources/collins-memorial-library/archives/abby-williams-hill-collection/biography/|title=Abby Williams Hill Biography|work=Collins Memorial Library: Abby Williams Hill Collection|publisher=University of Puget Sound|accessdate=17 January 2014|archive-date=13 January 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190113063023/https://www.pugetsound.edu/academics/academic-resources/collins-memorial-library/archives/abby-williams-hill-collection/biography/|url-status=dead}} and the couple settled in Tacoma, Washington{{cite news|url=http://seattletimes.com/html/entertainment/2003797045_visart20.html |title=Abby Williams Hill: unfettered in life and art |last=Farr |first=Sheila |date=July 20, 2007 |work=Seattle Times |pages=Visual Arts |accessdate=12 October 2013 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140812064556/http://seattletimes.com/html/entertainment/2003797045_visart20.html |archivedate=12 August 2014 }} and nearby Vashon Island, until 1910. They had one son and adopted three daughters.{{cite web|url=http://nwda.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv41784|title=Historical Note|year=2011|work=Guide to the Abby Williams Hill Papers 1880s-1930s|publisher=NWDA|accessdate=12 October 2013}}

Career

In the early 1900s, the Great Northern Railway and the Northern Pacific Railway commissioned Hill to paint landscapes of the northwestern United States to promote tourism.{{cite web|url=http://cityartsonline.com/issues/tacoma/2009/10/woman-love-great-wide-open|title=A Woman in Love with the Great Wide Open|last=Huberman|first=Bond|date=October 2, 2009|work=City Arts|publisher=Encore Media|accessdate=12 October 2013|location=Tacoma|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110625120947/http://www.cityartsonline.com/issues/tacoma/2009/10/woman-love-great-wide-open|archive-date=2011-06-25|url-status=usurped}} The commission required that Hill produce 22 paintings in just 18 weeks, and that she produce them en plein air.{{cite web|last1=Hishimoto|first1=Molly|title=A Woman Lured West: Abby Hill's Legacy of Art & Conservation|url=http://chattermarks.ncascades.org/odds-and-ends/abby-williams-hill/|website=Chattermarks|date=10 April 2009 |publisher=North Cascades Institute|accessdate=July 30, 2014}} Accompanied by her four children, Abby Hill took prolonged camping trips for the purpose of painting scenery in places such as Yosemite National Park and Yellowstone National Park. Her works were exhibited at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis and the 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland. Over the course of her career, Hill achieved her goal of painting in every national park in the Western United States.

Her husband became incapacitated by psychotic depression in 1911, so the family moved to the small isolated community of Laguna Beach, California, for the benefit of the mild, sunny climate. Abby Hill was one of several early-20th-century American artists who built studios in Laguna Beach and transformed it into an artist community. She became a founding member of the Laguna Beach Art Association. She and her husband lived there until 1922, eventually returning to Tacoma, Washington and California while he was a patient at various California hospitals. Upon his release in 1924, she purchased an automobile and, for the next seven years, she and the family wintered in Tucson, AZ, travelling during the summers to the Deep South and to many locations in the West.{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/163207812/?match=1&terms=Abby%20Williams%20Hill%20 | title=Dr. and Mrs. F.R. Hill to spend winter here | newspaper=Arizona Daily Star | date=January 11, 1925 | page=1}}

Following the death of her husband in 1938, Abby Hill became bedridden. She died in San Diego, California on May 14, 1943.{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/733480721/?match=1&terms=Abby%20Williams%20Hill%20 | title=Once noted Artist here: Abby Williams Hill passes away in San Diego at 82 | first=William H. | last=Frothingham|newspaper=The News Tribune | location=Tacoma, Washington| date=June 13, 1943|page=A10}}

Collection

A permanent collection of her works and papers is held by the University of Puget Sound.{{cite web|url=http://www.pugetsound.edu/academics/academic-resources/collins-memorial-library/explore-the-library/university-archives/abby-williams-hill/|title=Abby Williams Hill Digital Collection|year=2013|publisher=University of Puget Sound|accessdate=12 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130313205902/http://www.pugetsound.edu/academics/academic-resources/collins-memorial-library/explore-the-library/university-archives/abby-williams-hill/|archive-date=13 March 2013|url-status=dead|df=dmy-all}}

Abby Williams Hill

Early life and education

Career

Collection

See also

References

Further reading