Harry Pelling Gill was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

-born Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n artist and art teacher.

Gill was born at Brighton

Brighton

Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...

, Sussex

Sussex

Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...

, England, the son of Alfred Gill and his wife Frances Elizabeth, née Pelling. Gill studied at the Brighton School of Art, Hove and Sussex Grammar Schools and at South Kensington where he won a scholarship. In 1882 Gill was appointed master of the School of Design at Adelaide

Adelaide

Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...

 and held this position for 27 years. He published The Straight and Crooked Paths of Studentship in 1894. He was appointed honorary curator of the art gallery of South Australia

South Australia

South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...

, and in 1899 visited Europe where, with the assistance of a committee, he spent £10,000 on works of art. He was also responsible for purchasing works of young Australian artists such as Tom Roberts

Tom Roberts

Thomas William Roberts , usually known simply as Tom, was a prominent Australian artist and a key member of the Heidelberg School.-Life:...

, Hans Heysen

Hans Heysen

Sir Hans Heysen, OBE was a well-known German Australian artist. He was particularly recognized for his watercolours of the Australian bush. He won the Wynne Prize for landscape painting a record nine times.-Biography:...

 and Frederick McCubbin

Frederick McCubbin

Frederick McCubbin was an Australian painter who was prominent in the Heidelberg School, one of the more important periods in Australia's visual arts history....

. It was generally agreed that very good judgment had been shown in making these purchases. Gill was for some time president of the South Australian Society of Arts, and in 1909 was appointed principal and examiner of the South Australian School of Arts and Crafts. Gill resigned this position on 1 July 1915 on account of ill health, and while on a voyage to England, for reasons of health, died on 25 May 1916 . Gill had a good reputation as a teacher and lecturer. Gill was an Associate of the Royal College of Art, London, and a Freemason. An oil and three of his water-colours are in the Art Gallery of South Australia

Art Gallery of South Australia

The Art Gallery of South Australia , located on the cultural boulevard of North Terrace in Adelaide, is the premier visual arts museum in the Australian state of South Australia. It has a collection of over 35,000 works of art, making it, after the National Gallery of Victoria, the largest state...

. He was survived by his wife and two sons.

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