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.
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.
In 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[when?] 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.[citation needed]
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,[when?] 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.
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
Books designed, edited, authored, co-authored, or produced by Hill[edit]
The Eye of Walker Evans. Luc Sante. On the occasion of the exhibition Walker Evans: New York (Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 28 July-11 Oct 1998). Broadly surveys the life and work of Evans.
Walker Evans: First and Last. Harper and Row, New York, 1978. Seker Warburg, London, 1978. Design, picture sequence, production, Hill.
Walker Evans at Work. Harper and Row, New York, 1982. Thames and Hudson, London, 1982. Essay, Jerry L. Thompson. Concept, design, and picture editing, Hill
Walker Evans Havana 1933. Contrejour, Paris, 1989. Pantheon, New York, 1989. Concept, design and picture editing, Hill with Carla Miller.
Walker Evans: The Hungry Eye. Co-authors, Hill, Gilles Mora. Les Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1993[4] Harry N. Abrams. New York, 1993. Winner of the Prix de Nadar, Paris. The Krasna Krausz Book Award, London. Design Judy Kohn, concept and supervision Hill.[5]
W. Eugene Smith Photographs 1934-1975. Co-authors, Hill, Gilles Mora. Seuil, Paris, 1988. Harry N. Abrams. New York, 1988. Thames and Hudson, London, 1988. Design and picture editing, Hill and Dorothy Hill.
Walker Evans Simple Secrets. High Museum of Art. Harry N. Abrams. New York, 1998. Design, picture editing, and production, Hill. Honored by the AIGA as one of 50 Books of the Year.
Walker Evans: Depth of Field. Co-authors, Hill and Heinz Liesbrock. Design, Hill. Prestel, Munich, 2015.
Edward Weston: Forms of Passion, Passion of Forms. Seuil, Paris, 1998. Harry N. Abrams. New York, 1998. Thames and Hudson, London, 1998. Design and picture editing, Hill and Dorothy Hill.
Walker Evans. Biography by James Mellow. HillBasic, New York, 1999. Design, picture editing, Hill and Dorothy Hill. Honored by the AIGA as one of 50 Books of the Year.
The Idea of Cuba: Alex Harris. University of New Mexico Press. In association with The Center of Documentary Studies. Duke University, 2003. Design, Hill.
Herbert Matter[6] Stanford University, 2005. On the occasion of the acquisition of the Matter Archive. Design, picture editing, separations, and production, Hill.
Erwin Hauer: Continua. Architectural Screens and Walls. Princeton Architectural. New York, 2004. Design and picture editing, Hill.
Walker Evans: Lyric Documentary. Author and picture editor, Hill. Steidl, Göttingen, Germany, 2007. Book design, and digital separations, Hill.
The Work of Hebert Matter and Alvin Lustig, Hill created an exhibition featuring their work in the University of Georgia's art school gallery, 1954
Lincoln's America, USIA Exhibition. Hill was part of a small team of students and faculty who created the exhibition over a Christmas Holiday in 1958 and early 59. Faculty advisors were Alvin Eisenman, Norman Ives, and Bradbury Thompson, 1958
Photographs by Hebert Matter, with work by Herbert Matter, Foto Festival, Arles, France, 2000
Photographs by Peter Sekaer, with work by Peter Sekaer, Foto Festival, Arles, France, 2002
Walker Evans: Carbon and Silver, produced by Hill and Sven Martson, Evans' centennial exhibition, Yale University Art School Gallery, 2003; Harvard University, 2003; Duke University, 2003; Museo di Roma, Palazzo Brachi, 2005–06; UBS Gallery and Yale School of Art Avenue of Americas, 2006; Museo Alinari, Piazza S.M. Novella, Firenze, Italy, 2007.
Norman Ives: Constructions & Reconstructions, American Institute of Graphic Arts, New York City, 2007
Walker Evans: Carbon and Silver, Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York, 2009
The Exacting Eye of Walker Evans, Florence Griswold Museum, 2011/12[9]
Walker Evans's "Havana 1933", Laguardia Community College, 2013[10]
The Art of Walker Evans, Sandra Naddaff and Leigh Hafrey Three Columns Gallery, 2014
Walker Evans: Depth of Field, Josef Albers Museum, Bottrop, Germany, 2015/16. Most comprehensive exhibition to date, over 270 items.
Walker Evans: Depth of Field, Vancouver Art Gallery, 2016
Norman Ives: Constructions & Reconstructions, Rochester Institute of Technology, 2016/17
Norman Ives: Constructions & Reconstructions, UMASS North Dartmouth, 2021
