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- Arthur Derek Hill
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Painter notable for perceptive portraits and subtle landscapes, stage designer, exhibition organiser and writer, brother of the artist John Hill. He was born Arthur Derek Hill in Bassett, Hampshire. Was educated at Marlborough College, then studied stage design in Munich, Paris and Vienna, 1933–5, and began life drawing. Although he designed sets and costumes for the ballet The Lord of Burleigh at Sadler’s Wells in 1937, in Paris a year later he chose to paint rather than pursue designing. During World War II he worked on a farm in England, painting spare-time. Contributed articles to Penguin New Writing, New Statesman and other magazines. The 1940s and 1950s were busy years for Hill, for he had a first solo show at Nicholson Gallery, 1943; designed for Il Trovatore at Covent Garden, 1947; painted in Ireland and Italy, where he was encouraged by the critic Bernard Berenson; organised the Degas exhibition at Edinburgh Festival, 1952; had a series of shows at Leicester Galleries; and was art director of the British School in Rome, 1953–4, and 1957–8.