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Hill, Ernest Frederick RBSA

(1873-1960)

Although ‘Ern’ Hill was born, lived and died in Birmingham, he travelled extensively in Britain during his career and his work includes subjects in Scotland, Wales and the west of England.

However, like many other artists of the Edwardian era, Hill was particularly attracted to Newlyn, Cornwall and is sometimes associated with the Newlyn School of artists whose work often featured the fishermen's working life at sea and the everyday life in the harbour and nearby villages. Some paintings showed the hazards and tragedy of the community's life, such as women anxiously looking out to sea as the boats go out, or a young woman crying on hearing news of a disaster.

Hill exhibited titles of Newlyn subjects at the RBSA in 1900, and subsequent years and he was later to serve as a Vice President of the RBSA and later as Headmaster of Bourneville Art School until he retired.

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