Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hill, James John
HILL, JAMES JOHN (1811–1882), painter, was the son of Daniel Hill of Broad Street, Birmingham, where he was born in 1811. He was educated at Hazlewood School, and received his artistic training in the academy conducted by John Vincent Barber [see under Barber, Joseph], where Thomas Creswick [q. v.] was his fellow-student. He practised his art for some years in his native town, chiefly as a portrait-painter, and among his sitters were Dr. Warneford and Mrs. Glover, the founder of Spring Hill College. In 1839 he removed to London, and in 1842 was elected a member of the Society of British Artists. The first works which he exhibited there were ‘The Rose of York’ and ‘The Rose of Lancaster,’ with three portraits, and he continued a constant and popular contributor to its exhibitions for nearly forty years. Lady Burdett-Coutts was one of his most constant friends, and he painted for her many portraits and several pictures of horses and dogs. After some years' residence in London he mainly devoted himself to the fancy subjects by which he is best known. These were usually half-length single figures, or at most a couple of figures, studied from life, and with landscape backgrounds painted from nature. Many of the most effective were Irish studies, the earliest of which were painted in 1854, on his first visit to Ireland. Several were purchased by Mr. Ingram, and published as chromolithographs with the ‘Illustrated London News.’ Later in life he again changed his line in art, and devoted himself chiefly to landscape-painting, but not with success equal to that which he had achieved with his rustic figures. He died of bronchitis at Sutton House, West Hill, Highgate, on 27 Jan. 1882, in the seventy-first year of his age.
[Birmingham Daily Post, 31 Jan. 1882; reprinted in Architect, 1882, i. 73; Exhibition Catalogues of the Society of British Artists, 1842–82.]