Derek Hill

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DEREK HILL

 

Arthur Derek Hill was an English painter born in Southampton in 1916 who was well-known for painting portraits and landscapes. He traveled extensively in the Middle East and was often hosted at villa I Tatti in Florence by his friend Bernard Berenson. He lived for long periods in Ireland and he served as Director of Fine Arts at the British School at Rome for five years.

The collection includes 76 black-and-white photographic prints depicting Byzantine, Seljuk, and Ottoman monuments in Turkey and Syria. Most of the photographs show decorative elements such as reliefs, mihrabs, brick surfaces, and tileworks. Some additional images depict everyday life scenes. The images are examples of Fine-art photography and not mere documentary reproductions of specific subjects, as Hill tried to express his emotions and ideas about the places he visited. Some of them were published in Derek Hill's publications.