Carl Fredrik Hill

Carl Fredrik Hill (31 May 1849 – 22 February 1911) was a Swedish painter and draftsman. He is known for the atmospheric landscapes he painted during the first four years of his career, and for the drawings of fantastical scenes he created after he became mentally ill in his late twenties.

Biography Early life and training Born the son of a mathematics professor, Hill grew up in the university town of Lund in southern Sweden and had to strike out on his own as a landscape painter against his father's wishes. After studying at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts, he went to France. In the summer of 1874, he travelled to the village of Barbizon south of Paris, which was a thriving artists' colony. Both the Barbizon School and Camille Corot had a decisive influence on him.

Hill never lived to see his recognition as an artist. He produced thousands of drawings in various techniques: crayon, pencil, ink, India ink and watercolour. Some 3,500 drawings are still thought to exist, of which more than 2,600 are part of the collections of the Malmö Art Museum, as are 23 of his oil paintings. The largest collection of all was donated to the Malmö Art Museum by Hill's heirs and have been increased with important gifts from private collections.

Hill's drawings were discovered and admired mainly by artists. Thanks to the Swedish collector Rolf de Maré (1888–1964), Hill's work become known in connection with the French avant-garde of the 1920s and 1930s. In 1949, a hundred years after Hill's birth, a travelling exhibition was shown in London, Lucerne, Basel, Geneva and Hamburg. The exhibition was a success, and in 1952 the Institut Tessin in Paris published a book about Hill with an introduction by Jacques Lassaigne. Since then several works about Hill have appeared in Sweden, and Hill exhibitions succeed one another both in Sweden and abroad. Hill is now reckoned as one of Sweden's most important landscape painters, and the drawings done during the time he was ill in Lund have made him known outside Sweden as well.

Selected works The Cemetery (1877) Malmö Art Museum Quarry with wheel tracks (1877) Malmö Art Museum untitled (crying dear) (1883–1911) Malmö Art Museum untitled (landscape) (1883–1911) Malmö Art Museum untitled (female with demons) (1883–1911) Malmö Art Museum untitled (found by the Good Samaritan) (1883–1911) Malmö Art Museum