G.S. Hill (b. 1944)
To say this artist is largely self taught is an understatement. Gregory Hill was taught by the surf. He learned while repairing the vessels in a harbor and accumulated his painterly vocabulary while traveling around – and around and around – the world.
Born in California, and perhaps tutored, or at least encouraged in the “how tos” of painterly observation by his mother, then an art director for a newspaper in Oregon, Greg completed his first oil painting at the age of 12. Young Mr. Hill endured some architectural training at a university level, and even engaged an art class or two; but his instincts told him there was more to learn outside of academic disciplines. At 19 he set out for Europe, choosing to journal what he observed in images rather than words.
Gregory Hill is both draftsman and documentarian. He retreats to his studio every single day, pondering what once was against what is, in the street scapes, architectural portraits, vistas and sailing vessels he portrays on canvas. Among his oeuvre of representational works, his interest in evolution of place influences each and every composition, as the artist colors light and dark the way hours evolve the day: long morning shadows, hot reflective sunlight, sunset haze. At the hand of this artist, each scene might be construed in multiples, according to the arch of the sun as it circles the sea, a golf course, an historic landmark.
Look for texture in the oil paintings; a slightly romanticized precision in the pencil drawings and watercolors. Discover movement in skies and fields, in billowed sales, lacquered ships’ rails and sparkling water. Look for history in facades, trees, streets and walkways. Look for what’s familiar. See it through an artist’s eyes.
GS Hill opened his first gallery in Seal Beach, CA in 1969. By 1972 he was once again traveling; this time with his wife, Judi. He painted and sketched as they traveled, selling the work in summer art fairs, until settling in Maui in 1974. During the next decades, one man shows in Europe, Japan, Australia, the Hawaiian Islands and eventually Nantucket established GS Hill solidly among collectors.
Hill’s first exhibit on Nantucket was at the Harbour Gallery, on Old South Wharf, where began a solid relationship between the couple and the community. Both far-reaching and generous, the Hills donate largely to the island’s not for profits; as much as $30-40,000 annually is raised through the sale of GS Hill paintings; for Hospice, AIDS, the Hospital, Childrens’ Charity Classic, NHA and more. In 1994, proceeds from a GS Hill historic painting that marked the Centennial of the Nantucket Historical Association channeled $14,000 for the Edouard Stackpole papers. A series of 8 graphite drawings that span 1979-1993 remain in the NHA’s permanent collection.
Recent Examples at Auction










- Joan Albaugh
- Ethel Anderson
- William D. Appleton
- Clifford Warren Ashley
- John Austin
- Milton Avery
- Solon Francis Montecello Badger
- James Francis Barker
- Doris & Richard Beer
- Eugene Louis Boudin
- Alfred Thompson Bricher
- Albert Bross
- Robert Bushong
- Polly Bushong
- James Edward Buttersworth
- Ralph Eugene Cahoon
- Martha Cahoon
- Nikita Carpenko
- Lincoln J. Ceely
- Frederick S Chadwick
- Rodney Charman
- Frank Swift Chase
- Leander M Churbuck
- Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin
- Anne Ramsdell Congdon
- Colin Campbell Cooper
- Laura Cooper
- Mellie Cooper
- Frank Corso
- James Cromartie
- Roy Cross
- Vu Cao Dam
- William R. Davis
- Gene Davis
- Molly Dee
- Donald Demers
- John Devaney
- William Duffy
- Lawrence Charmichael Earle
- Henry Stephens Eddy
- Alan J. Eddy
- Virginia Bargar Evans
- José Fabri-Canti
- John Falato
- George Gardner Fish
- Annie Barker Folger
- James Walter Folger
- Stephen Gibbs
- André Gisson
- Sybil Goldsmith
- Emile Albert Gruppe
- Marilyn Guerinot
- Mauritz Frederik Hendrick de Haas
- Davis Hall
- Kerry Hallam
- James Harrington
- James Hathaway
- Lowell Herrero
- Jason Emerson Herron
- Philip Hicken
- George Frank Higgins
- G.S. Hill
- Megan Hinton
- Emily Hoffmeier
- Alfred Heber Hutty
- George Inness
- Antonio Nicolo Gasparo Jacobson
- Edgar W. Jenney
- Theodore Jeremenko
- Eastman Johnson
- Illya Kagan
- Michael Keane
- William Keith
- David Kooharian
- Kenneth Layman
- David Lazarus
- George Lear
- Richard Hayley Lever
- John Lochtefeld
- Harriet Lord
- Richard Loud
- William W. Lowe
- Michael Lynch
- William Starbuck Macy
- William Ferdinand Macy
- Wendell Macy
- Aletha Macy
- George Herbert McCord
- Keith McDaniel
- Joseph McGurl
- Maggie Meredith
- Addison Thomas Millar
- Jan L. Munro
- Mary Sarg Murphy
- Mark Myers
- Tom Nicholas
- Reginald Eugene Nickerson
- Michael A. Palmer
- Margaret Jordan Patterson
- Jan Pawlowski
- Edgar Payne
- C. Robert Perrin
- Helen Sharp Potter
- Jane Brewster Reid
- José Formoso Reyes
- Volney Allan Richardson
- Forrest Anderson Rodts
- Sergio Roffo
- Lenka Rubenstein
- Elizabeth Saltonstall
- Andrew Jackson Sandsbury
- Tony Sarg
- Issac Sheffield
- Andrew Shunney
- Henry Pember Smith
- Lillian Gertrude Smith
- H. Stadler
- Richard Stalter
- Robert Stark Jr.
- William Pierce Stubbs
- Mara Superior
- Ruth Haviland Sutton
- Ferdinand Sylvaro
- Anthony Thieme
- Tim Thompson
- Roy Tidmarsh
- Yasemin Tomakan
- Katie Trinkle-Legge
- Isabelle Hollister Tuttle
- Emma H. Van Pelt
- William Welch
- Orrin Augustine White
- Paul Whitten
- Paul Willer
- Sid Willis
- Bert Wright
- James Wyer
- Julian E. Yates
- Lori Zummo