Thomas Hill
British-born Thomas Hill immigrated to Massachusetts with his family when he was young. He later found himself drawn west, eventually settling in San Francisco, where he made the grandeur of California the subject of many paintings. Even while traveling on the East Coast and in Europe, he continued to paint California scenes. He made annual sketching trips to Yosemite, Mount Shasta, and the White Mountains, and he kept a studio at Yosemite’s Wawona Hotel (now Big Trees Lodge) in his final years.
When was the last time you got lost in the vastness of a landscape?
Hill often painted vast landscapes, with expansive vistas and figures dwarfed by the scenery. The view here has been identified as the San Pedro Creek valley—we, the viewers, are standing on the western side of the mid-Peninsula ridge, looking out toward the Pacific Ocean in late spring or early summer. Trees and scrub open up towards a bridle path crossing the scene, framed by the trees at left and the outcropping of rocks on the right.
Gift of Mrs. Harold R. McKinnon and Mrs. Harry L. Brown