Carrie Hill

Note: Carrie Hill was born in the coal mining town of Vance, Alabama, named for her maternal grandfather Dr. William Vance. The family moved to Birmingham, Alabama in 1891 when Hill was sixteen. Although she traveled and studied nationally and abroad, Hill’s permanent residence remained in Birmingham where she was a charter member of the Birmingham Art Club established in 1908 which eventually became the basis for the Birmingham Museum of Art. Hill attended workshops under the tutelage of Elliot Daingerfield and Arthur R. Freedlander, artists who are credited with having had great influence on her own artistic style and color palette. She also studied with American Impressionist George Elmer Browne at his Provincetown, Massachusetts school and toured Europe several times with his “European Painting Group.” Hill primarily painted floral still lifes and plein air landscapes, subjects enlivened by her impressionistic style and radiant hues.

Hill was honored with many exhibitions in the United States, and in 1928 two of her paintings were chosen for the Exposition Officielle des Beaux-Arts, known as “Le Salon,” by the Société des Artistes Français. During the Great Depression, she was one of four Alabama artists to receive commissions through the Public Works of Art Projects Division of the Public Works Administration. After her death in 1957 the Alabama Art League established the “Carrie Hill Memorial Award” for landscape painting. Ref.: Linn, Julius. “Carrie Lillian Hill (1875-1957).” The Artist Carrie L. Hill Association. www.artistcarriehill.com. Accessed Mar. 1, 2023; Birmingham Museum of Art. “In the Foothills of the Pyrenees.” Birmingham Museum of Art. www.artsbma. org. Accessed Mar. 1, 2023.

Note: Helen Pickle was a self-taught artist from Aberdeen, Mississippi who began painting around the age of sixty after surviving a stroke that left her partially paralyzed. Following her illness, Helen and her husband Reuban Pickle faced a difficult transition, not only having to adapt to her new disability, but also the death of their only son a few years prior. They closed their dry-cleaning business and retreated in isolation. One day a friend encouraged Helen to paint with a set of acrylic paints, and within a couple of years, Pickle developed her own aesthetic which garnered local interest. As her work grew in popularity, her husband supported her artistic pursuits by crafting wooden frames for works to be sold and displayed. She became known for her “odd little scenes,” depicting open spaces dotted with minute figures and furniture in disjointed perspectives. A quiet sentimentality colors her work with a bittersweet consideration of family and celebrations past. Ref.: Fleming, Anne. “Aberdeen’s Helen Pickle to show her happy paintings at Lyon.” The Clarksdale Press Register. Sept 4, 1975. www.newspapers.com. Accessed Mar. 3, 2023.