Robin Hill (Australian artist)

Throughout the 1970s Hill was involved graphic work for television, employed first by ABV2 television's graphic design department for which he designed the televised animations and title graphics[27]  for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's first televised nature documentary series Bush Quest with Robin Hill with director and producer Ken Taylor.[28][29] This series began broadcasting in 1970, with Hill as the host providing observations and commentary on bird species in the state of Victoria.[30] The success of his contribution to wildlife television on the ABC was foundational for the formation of the 1973 ABC Natural History Unit. Hill increased traction for wildlife documentaries on the ABC with the series Wild Australia being based on Hill's series.[31] The series focused on observing a wide range of species to showcase diversity and the importance of environmental sustainability, this being a common focus in 1970's wildlife documentaries.[32][33] The series emphasised environmental issues of which Ken Taylor and Hill had become aware observing degradation of habitats in New South Wales.[34] The series advocated for conservation of natural habitats, cultivating a rising awareness of environmental issues in Australian television, adding to a trend of televised recognition of human impact on the environmental that was gathering pace in the 1970s.[35][36]

Hill's subject-matter and capability is broad; he has painted not only birds, but also animals such as dogs and farm animals[37] and human portraits,[38] still life, landscapes, industrial sites and pre-Columbian ruins,[39] in as watercolour, gouache and oils.[40]

During Robin Hill's childhood he began birdwatching and observation of wildlife which inspired his later art.[41] Hill also attributes the development of his artistic style to the drawings made while living in the bush and observing native birds in the Australian environment first-hand.[42] The book designing course he took at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology further developed his natural history drawing style.[43] His connection with the course's coordinator Harold Freedman led him to create a collection of Australian bird lithographs, with Freedman encouraging his artistic ability.[44] His lithographs of birds of prey were exhibited by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology's print and lithography group exhibition.[45] This was a catalyst for Hill's first commercial exhibition in the Australian Galleries in 1958, in which he exhibited around thirty paintings of birds of prey inspired by his lithographs.[46] It took him eighteen months to prepare all the paintings he presented at this exhibition.[47] A second exhibition in 1960 at the Australian Galleries built on its success.[48] Hill has traveled extensively during the course of his artistic career, drawing inspiration from many species of birds from countries including Africa, Australia, Britain and America.[49] An inspiration is other artists; Botticelli, Durer, Reubens and Michelangelo[50] and there is also an eastern influence on Hill's works from Japanese screen prints and Chinese scroll paintings of animals.[51]

The construction of Hill's watercolour artworks either develops from museum skin references or birdwatching sketches done in the natural environment.[52] Hill's utilisation of museum skins as references for his works has brought both negative and positive criticism.[53][54] Hill's works are often painted on watercolour canvases; these canvases are prepared with a wetted sponge to allow the watercolour background wash to be applied.[55]

Hill has had works exhibited in many galleries, these include; the Australian Galleries in Melbourne, the Tyron Galleries in London, the Morris Museum of Art in Georgia and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.[56] Hill has had several exhibitions in many cities, such as; Melbourne, Sydney, Johannesburg, London, New York, Middleburg, Virginia, Georgia and Washington D. C.[57] During the 1980s Hill had developed a set of paintings of upland game birds that were exhibited throughout various cities in America as part of a traveling exhibition held by the Smithsonian Institution.[58] Hill has a permanent exhibition of more than two hundred endangered species of ducks, geese, swans, upland game birds, birds of prey and marsh birds at the Morris Museum of Art.[59] His artistic presentation of endangered species contributes a promotion of awareness of environmental sustainability to the museum.[60] Hill also went on to contribute works to a traveling exhibition that supported the World Wildlife Fund, this collection of works was titled the vanishing series and it included paintings of endangered and extinct bird species from North America.[61] Hill was also commissioned in the 1980s by Clyde's Restaurant Group to create eighteen watercolour bird paintings that was displayed among the restaurants all of which were on large canvases, among these paintings was a nine by five feet triptych.[62]

In addition to numerous articles in newspapers and magazines, Hill's publications include:

• 1960. Australia’s Waterfowl. (Text by M.C. Downes and Ina Watson). Victoria: Fisheries & Wildlife.
• 1962. Bushland and Seashore. An Australian nature adventure. Melbourne: Lansdowne Press.
• 1967. Australian Birds. Melbourne: Thomas Nelson.
• 1968. Bush Quest. Melbourne: Lansdowne Press.
• 1970. The Corner. A naturalist's journeys in south-eastern Australia. Melbourne: Lansdowne Press.
• 1987. The Waterfowl of North America. Augusta, GA: Morris Communications Corporation

From his experience of sailing,[63] Hill has written for the magazine Cruising World; informative columns on bird species such as the brown pelican, the great blue heron and the snowy egret[64][65][66] illustrated with original sketches of the birds. He participated the One-Two Race event held by Cruising World in Bermuda in 1981,[67] but dropped out due to issues with the self-steering system of his Folkboat.[68]