John T. Hill

As an undergraduate at the University of Georgia, Hill studied painting, design, and photography, earning a BFA in design in 1955, and an MFA in painting in 1956. After a tour of infantry duty he continued graduate studies in design and photography at the Yale School of Art and Architecture.

On graduating, he was asked to join the Yale faculty, where he taught both graphic design and photography. His faculty colleagues from the 1960s and 70s included Alvin Eisenman, Walker Evans, Herbert Matter, Norman Ives, Bradbury Thompson, and Paul Rand.

When Yale's Graphic Design Department was established in 1951 photography was seen as an integral part of the curriculum . Twenty years later, with photography's increased presence in the arts, Eisenman and Hill founded Yale's first Department of Photography, making it independent from its parent, Graphic Design.

Hill served as the department's first Director of Graduate Studies in Photography from 1971 to 1978.

He began his early studies with hopes of being a painter before evolving into design and photography. During more than twenty years of teaching, Hill continued to work as a photographer, taking pictures for numerous books, magazines, and corporate publications. As a designer, his work is diverse, ranging from US postage stamp design to exhibition installations. Within the last ten years he has focused primarily on books and exhibition designs, as well as writing.

Three years before his death, Walker Evans asked Hill to serve as executor of his estate. On Evans' death in 1975, Hill took as a goal the expanded reading of Evans' work. The most common perception was, at best, a bathetic record of the Great Depression in the rural South. For Hill and many others, Evans' work rose high above that limited appraisal to be examined as a more universal statement surpassing the specifics of that time and place. As executor, Hill produced four books for the Evans estate. Others followed, all with that same purpose.

During and after his 19-year tenure as Evans' executor, Hill created many exhibitions of gelatin silver prints made from Evans' negatives. Within the last ten years, Hill has used the digital techniques of scanning, file adjustment, and digital printing to interpret Evans' images.[1] These digital tools allow maintaining detailed information in both dark and light passages, in a manner not possible with gelatin silver printing. Hill has used these digital files to produce prints, exhibitions, and books that extend the appreciation of Evans' intricate and multi-layered work. These exhibitions have been shown in museums and galleries in France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Korea, New York City, and numerous other American institutions.

With Hill's help, the Evans archive was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art[2] in 1994. There it has received appreciation for its intrinsic value as the work of one of America's seminal artists. Proper conservation and cataloging can only be realized by an institution with such perception, size, and depth. The major portion of that archive is now available for study online.

Hill has also produced books presenting the work of wide-ranging talents, including Walker Evans, W. Eugene Smith, Edward Weston, Erwin Hauer, and Peter Sekaer.

In 2013 Hill designed the book Calder by Matter[3] for Cahiers d'Art. It is Herbert Matter's intimate account of Calder's work and his family life for over thirty years.

Books related to Walker Evans produced by J. Hill:

• Walker Evans First and Last
• Walker Evans at Work
• Walker Evans Havana
• Walker The Hungry Eye
• Walker Evans Lyric Documentary
• Walker Evans: Depth of Field

Designed, Edited, Authored, Co-authored, or Produced by John T. Hill:

Four Directions in Modern Photography

• Yale University Art Gallery
• December 14, 1972 - February 25, 1973

Bulldog and Panther Exhibition

• Yale University Art Gallery
• 2014